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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 4 Mar 20264 Mar 2026<\/p>\n
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A \u2060ballistic \u2060missile fired from Iran and heading into \u2060Turkish airspace after passing over Syria and Iraq \u2060has been destroyed by NATO air defence systems, the Turkish Ministry of National Defence says.<\/p>\n
It was not clear where the missile was aimed.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA ballistic munition launched from Iran, which was detected passing through Iraqi and Syrian airspace and heading towards Turkish airspace, was engaged in a timely manner by NATO air and missile defence assets stationed in the eastern Mediterranean and rendered inactive,\u201d the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It said there were no \u2060casualties or injuries, adding that Ankara \u2060reserves the right to respond \u2060to any \u2060hostile actions against it while warning parties to refrain \u200cfrom escalating the conflict.<\/p>\n
Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan conveyed in a call to his Iranian \u2060counterpart Ankara\u2019s protest over \u2060a ballistic missile fired from Iran and heading towards \u200cTurkish airspace, the Reuters news agency reported.<\/p>\n
During the call, Fidan also told Iranian Foreign \u2060Minister Abbas Araghchi \u2060that any \u2060steps that could further widen the conflict \u200cmust be avoided, Reuters added.<\/p>\n
NATO \u2060condemned Iran\u2019s targeting of Turkiye, spokesperson \u2060Allison Hart said, adding that the organisation \u201cstands firmly with \u200call Allies, including Turkiye\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur deterrence \u2060and defence posture remains strong across \u2060all domains, including when \u2060it comes \u2060to air and missile defence,\u201d Hart \u200csaid.<\/p>\n
United States Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that there was \u201cno sense\u201d that the destruction of the ballistic missile would trigger NATO\u2019s Article 5 clause, which outlines that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all members.<\/p>\n
Incirlik Air Base in Turkiye is used by foreign military forces, primarily the US and other NATO allies. The base is under the control of the Turkish air force but operates as a joint Turkish-US airbase.<\/p>\n
Incirlik was a critical logistics and air support location for US-led operations in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and later as a cargo hub for Iraq and Afghanistan operations.<\/p>\n
Turkiye denied the US permission to use it for the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, but it was heavily used for anti-ISIL (ISIS) strikes from 2014.<\/p>\n
Cyprus temporarily closes airspace<\/p>\n
Separately on Wednesday, also in the eastern Mediterranean, authorities in Cyprus closed the airspace above Larnaca after detecting what they said was a suspicious object.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, an Iranian-made drone caused minor damage at a United Kingdom military base on the island. Another two drones were shot down on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo Greek jets took off on Wednesday to shoot down a suspected drone just outside Cyprus\u2019 airspace,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s John Psaropoulos reported from the Cypriot city of Limassol.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreek frigates are also circling the waters around Cyprus to help provide targeting coordinates for two pairs of F-16s sent here by Greece that they\u2019re supposed to operate in tandem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Psaropoulos said the security situation in the country remained tense despite no strikes having taken place in the past couple of days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one on Sunday night was the only one, but because there have been other drones headed towards Cyprus, it has been deemed necessary to send all possible means here to make sure that those drones continue to be downed offshore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defence Ministry says missile destroyed as it approached Turkish airspace after crossing Iraq and Syria. Listen to this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5704,49,585,632,151,50,51,47,52,48,1644],"class_list":{"0":"post-457215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-middle-east","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories","18":"tag-turkey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}