COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark has decided to send a navy frigate to join NATO’s naval force in the eastern Mediterranean to prepare for possible evacuations in case the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalates, the Danish ministry of defence said on Monday.
“The security situation in the Middle East is currently unpredictable. Therefore, the government has decided to move the frigate Niels Juel to the eastern Mediterranean,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in a statement.
“If the situation in the Middle East develops and further evacuation efforts are needed, we are now closer and can react faster,” he said.
The frigate will not sail east of Cyprus, which has a maritime border with Israel, while deployed in NATO’s naval force, the ministry said.
The frigate Niels Juel is usually deployed as part of NATO’s ‘Standing Maritime Group One’ in the North Atlantic.
(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
