Spain to send military aircraft to support NATO in Ukraine

SPAIN will send four military planes to the Ukraine in the autumn to support the NATO mission launched in the region amid the tensions between Russia and its former Soviet State.

Minister of foreign affairs José Manuel García-Margallo has met with the NATO Alliance secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen to offer Spain's assistance by making four Eurofighters, a Boeing 77 and two additional frigates available to reinforce air policing over the Baltic region and in the Mediterranean area of the Horn of Africa.

The Guardia Civil national headquarters in Bétera (Valencia province) will also be freed up to NATO from which to launch its European operations linked to Ukraine.

It is likely the crafts and the military base will become available to NATO by the autumn.

In the meantime, Rasmussen says he does not see NATO interfering with the conflict in Iraq, given that the organisation was set up to 'defend its allies' and so far 'nobody has asked' for help in the war-torn Middle Eastern country.

NATO is designed to share intelligence and information between allies to fight international terrorism, and the European Alliance may become involved in Iraq in this sense, but is unlikely to find itself on the front line.

The Danish diplomat says the Alliance is 'monitoring the situation very closely' following the abduction of around 50 employees from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul and some 30 Turkish lorry drivers, all by members of the yihad, or 'Holy War' sect, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

NATO is working with the families and friends of the kidnap victims in a bid to get them released as soon as possible.