NATO will weigh calls for a naval mission in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to police refugee streams as a fresh exodus from Syria adds to European leaders' desperation.
Such a mission, proposed by Germany and Turkey, would thrust the 28-nation alliance into the humanitarian trauma aggravated by the Russian-backed offensive by Syrian troops that drove thousands out of Aleppo and toward Turkey.
"We will take very seriously a request from Turkey and other allies to look into what NATO can do to help them cope with and deal with the crisis," North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday.
NATO is confronted with Russian intervention in the Middle East -- including airspace violations over Turkey, an alliance member -- after reinforcing its eastern European defenses in response to the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea and fomenting rebellion in Ukraine in 2014.
Allied warships now on a counter-terrorism mission in the Mediterranean and anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia could be reassigned to monitor and potentially go after human traffickers in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey.