North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Turkish warplanes shot down an unidentified drone in Turkish air space near Syria on Oct. 16 and a U.S. official said Washington believed it was of Russian origin. 

The Russian defence ministry said all of its planes in Syria had safely returned to base and that all its drones were operating "as planned". 

Turkish jets have shot down an "aerial vehicle" near the Syrian border, the Turkish military said in a written statement on Oct. 16, in the latest sign of the tensions on Turkey's southern borders.
The target was an unmanned aerial vehicle that was shot down in Turkish airspace before falling onto Turkish soil, according to military sources.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Oct. 15 Europe had no chance of overcoming its biggest refugee crisis without cooperation with Turkey and called for a crackdown on human smuggling off its coast.

NATO officials were greeted with protests and an invitation to visit anti-government demonstrators during a high-level visit to the Montenegrin capital on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta said on Wednesday that the anti-missile system which is to be installed at the Deveselu military base in southern Romania does not violate the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, as Russia has claimed.

Ponta argued that there was no violation of the treaty "because the anti-missile system is a defence system".

The Russian military build-up and bombing in Syria has added to the already existing tension between Russia and the West since the former's occupation of Crimea, and has prompted a new confrontation area on NATO's southeastern flank in addition to difficulties on the eastern flank.

Hours after Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu pointed at the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as the prime suspect in the Ankara twin bombings on Oct. 10 which claimed the lives of at least 97 people (some who were heavily wounded are still in critical condition) the United States started on Oct.

Greece on Oct. 13 dismissed a suggestion it should set up joint patrols in the Aegean Sea with regional rival Turkey, as Europe struggles to control its worst migrant crisis since World War II.

It's been a week since the Russians began their air-strikes in Syria and the countries that have already been bombing there for over a year - the United States and some other NATO countries - are working themselves up into a rage about it. The Russians are not bombing the right people, they are killing civilians; they are reckless, dangerous, and just plain evil.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has advised the United States to use the example of Bulgarian Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov and his policy of discipline.

Speaking at a conference of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria (AmCham), Borisov also urged Washington ro revoke visas for the Bulgarian businesses as other EU member states did.