Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Turkey weighs response after Syria downs Turkish jet

Turkey weighs response after Syria downs Turkish jet
 
ANKARA/BEIRUT: Turkey promised on Saturday to do "whatever necessary" in 
response to Syria's shooting-down of a Turkish fighter, but did not 
immediately contest an assertion by Damascus that the jet had been in 
its airspace at the time.
 
The downing of the aircraft, at a point close to the sea borders of both 
countries, provided a demonstration of Syria's formidable 
Russian-supplied air defences; one of the many reasons for Western 
qualms about any military intervention to halt bloodshed in the country.
 
Ankara's once-friendly relations with Damascus had already turned icy 
over President Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown on a 16-month-old 
revolt, but signals from both sides suggested neither wanted a military 
confrontation over the incident.
 
"It is not possible to cover over a thing like this, whatever is 
necessary will be done," Turkish President Abdullah Gul said, according 
to state news agency Anatolia, adding that Ankara had been in telephone 
contact with Syrian authorities.
 
He said it was routine for fast-flying jets to cross borders for a short 
distance and that an investigation would determine whether the F-4 
fighter was brought down in Turkish airspace.
 
Syria's military said the Turkish aircraft was flying low, just one 
kilometre off the Syrian coast, when it was shot down.
 
"The navies of the two countries have established contact. Syrian naval 
vessels are participating along with the Turkish side in the search 
operation for the missing pilots," it said.
 
With the second biggest army in NATO, a force hardened by nearly 30 
years of fighting Kurdish rebels, Turkey would be a formidable foe for a 
Syrian military already struggling to put down a popular uprising and an 
increasingly potent insurgency.
 
 
"DECISIVE STEPS"
 
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan chaired an emergency security 
meeting on Friday evening after which his office said it is "understood" 
that Syria had downed the plane and confirmed that both sides were 
searching for the two missing airmen.
 
"Turkey will present its final stance after the incident has been fully 
brought to light and decisively take the necessary steps," said a 
statement from Erdogan's office.
 
Turkish newspapers were less restrained.
 
"They (the Syrians) will pay the price," said Vatan, while Hurriyet 
daily said "He (Assad) is playing with fire."
 
The joint Turkish-Syrian search and rescue operation sits uneasily with 
Turkey's hosting of the rebel Free Syrian Army fighting to topple Assad, 
once a personal friend of Erdogan.
 
The souring of relations over the past year has provoked concern among 
Turks that Syria may revive its former support for Kurdish Workers Party 
(PKK) insurgents in southeastern Turkey.
 
"It's possible the Turks were sending jets in the area in response to an 
apparent escalation of the PKK's activities," Hilal Khashan, political 
science professor at the American University of Beirut, told Reuters.
 
"Turkey may suspect that Syria and Iran are supporting Kurdish rebel 
activities now as a reaction to Turkish support of the Syrian revolt," 
he said.
 
However, Khashan said he did not expect a harsh military reaction from 
Turkey. "It is under a tight leash by the United States. They don't want 
to start a war tomorrow."
 
BUDDING CIVIL WAR
 
A civil war, or something closely resembling one, is already in full 
swing in Syria, where fighting or shelling engulfed parts of the cities 
of Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Deir al-Zor and Douma, according to the Syrian 
Observatory for Human Rights.
 
The British-based watchdog also reported fierce clashes and shelling in 
the town of al-Bab in Aleppo province, where army helicopters were 
flying overhead. It said rockets and gunfire had killed three people in 
al-Qusair, a town in Homs province. Two men were killed in an ambush by 
security forces in Hama.
 
Turkey fears the fighting, much of which pits majority Sunni Muslim 
dissidents and rebels against Assad's Alawite-dominated security forces, 
could unleash a flood of refugees over its own border and ignite 
regional sectarian conflict.
 
It already hosts 32,000 Syrian refugees near the border. The opposition 
Syrian National Council meets in Istanbul.
 
Ankara has previously floated the possibility of setting up some kind of 
safe haven or humanitarian corridor inside Syria, which would entail 
military intervention, but has said it would undertake no such action 
without U.N. Security Council approval.
 
Turkey has said however that Assad must go.
 
It was unclear why the Syrians had shot down the aircraft, which, having 
left a base in Malatya, was flying close to a corridor linking Turkey 
with Turkish forces on Northern Cyprus.
 
"The Syrian military may have taken a calculated gamble by downing the 
Turkish plane, which could boost the morale of Assad's loyalists after 
increased defections from the military," said Yasser Saadeldine, an 
opposition Syrian commentator.
 
"A Turkish retaliation would fit into the fantasy he (Assad) is peddling 
that the uprising is a foreign conspiracy."
 
Russia and China, Assad's strongest backers abroad, have fiercely 
opposed any outside interference in the Syrian crisis, saying envoy Kofi 
Annan's peace plan is the only way forward.
 
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his Syrian 
counterpart on Friday that he had urged Syria to "do a lot more" to 
implement Annan's U.N.-backed proposals, but that foreign countries must 
also press rebels to stop the violence.
 
Lavrov said the Syrian authorities were ready to withdraw troops from 
cities "simultaneously" with rebels. A Syrian military pullback and a 
ceasefire were key elements in Annan's six-point peace plan, most of 
which remains a dead letter.
 
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Jun-23/177900-gul-says-downed-turkish-warplane-may-have-violated-syrian-airspace.ashx
 
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 Turkey weighs response after Syria downs Turkish jet
 
poveri orfani dell'impero neottomano: sono finiti i bei tempi in cui sognavate ad occhi aperti marines iranoturchi sbarcare a suez e far vedere ai quisling giordanoegizi come si fa guerra ai "sionisti".


LOL
 
 
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“Those who expect to reap the blessings of  freedom, must, like men,
undergo the  fatigues of supporting it.”  - North Idaho 21st Batallion of
Light Foot