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Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Turks Down Russian Fighter over Syrian Border
The event against which everyone cautioned has happened. A Russian fighter apparently violated Turkish airspace while in pursuit of those in Syria who wish to overthrow Moscow's ally, Bashir al Assad. Russian claims that its pilots were over Syria, while the Turkish government argues that the plane was hit in Turkish airspace. In either case, this is a failure of communication and coordination that should have and could have been avoided.
Both sides agree that the Russian Su-24 was shot down by a Turkish F-16 and that it crashed in the Syrian province of Latakia. Latakia is territory over which the Damascus government (supported by Russia) and Syria rebels (some of whom receive support from Turkey) are fighting. The Russians claim that their aircraft never strayed from Syrian airspace. The Turks, in a letter to the UN Security Council have a different account of the events. The BBC explains
Turkey's permanent representative Halit Cevik wrote that two aircraft whose nationalities were unknown had approached Turkish airspace near the town of Yayladagi in Hatay province.
The planes were warned 10 times over the space of five minutes via an "emergency" channel and asked to change direction, he added.
Both planes disregarded the warnings and then flew 2.19km (1.36 miles) and 1.85km (1.15 miles) into Turkey for 17 seconds from 09:24:05 (07:24:05 GMT), according to Mr Cevik.
"Following the violation, plane 1 left Turkish national airspace. Plane 2 was fired at while in Turkish national airspace by Turkish F-16s performing air combat patrolling in the area. Plane 2 crashed onto the Syria side of the Turkish-Syrian border."
The Russians have reacted rather badly to the episode. President Putin complained, "This was a stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists." In other words, Turkey is an accomplice of terrorists, and therefore, so it NATO given Turkey's status as a founding member of the alliance. After an extraordinary meeting of the alliance's main decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared, "We stand in solidarity with Turkey and support the territorial integrity of our Nato ally."
President Putin is excessive in his language, but one is prepared to argue that the violation of airspace for 17 seconds followed by an air-to-air missile attack was over-reaction by the Turks. Although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was right when he said, "everyone should respect the right of Turkey to defend its borders," this could readily have been a navigation error and not a deliberate violation.
If it was deliberate, it was a challenge to Turkey's stated policy of treating all "elements" approaching Turkey from Syria are presumed to be hostile. Russia may want to encourage Turkey to back away from its support of some of the Syrian rebels through intimidation. If so, it is a dangerous game, and the Turkish military has given its reply.
The Syrian situation is a case for a single coalition dedicated to taking down the terrorists. Russia and NATO have differing views about the survival of the al-Assad regime, and that is what has brought the world to this point -- a NATO member shooting down a Russian aircraft. Both sides still have thousands of nuclear weapons. The nonsense needs to end.
© Copyright 2015 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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