On May 29 Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to Turkey and Honorary Consul of Lithuania in Mersin Abdülaziz Armağan Öner paid a visit to Incirlik Airbase and met with soldiers of the Lithuanian Armed Forces Communications and Information Systems Battalion deployed there to multinational NATO's Operation Active Fence.
The guests were interested not only in the soldiers tasks but also in their service conditions, welfare and other aspects of service in international environment.
The current Lithuanian contingent in the NATO operation in Turkey comprises 9 soldiers, highly qualified IT experts, of the Deployable Communication and Information Systems Module (DCISM) of the Lithuanian Armed Forces Communications and Information Systems Battalion.
According to the Contingent Commander Maj Albertas Dusevičius, Lithuanians are providing aerial picture generated from radar data to Spain's Patriot missiles defence systems which enables their colleagues to track, identify and neutralise threats to Turkey's airspace on time.
The DCISM is the only company-sized unit of the Lithuanian Armed Forces constantly assigned to one of the three Signal Battalions of NATO forces and has a status of an international military NATO headquarters. The main task of the DCISM is ensure mobile C2 support to temporary or deployable NATO headquarters.
NATO Operation Active Fence was launched in 2012 in response to Turkey's request to enhance its airspace defence with missile systems following two incidents: destruction of a Russian fighter aircraft in the Turkish airspace and firing on the Turkish territory from the Syrian side with Turkish civilian casualties. NATO responded to Turkey's request by deploying Patriot missile air defence systems of U.S., Dutch and German militaries along its border with Syria on the southern side of the country.
Article by Maj Albertas Dusevičius
