Turkey- U.S. urges calm following Turkish downing of Russian jet

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Following Turkish F-16s’ downing of a Russian SU-24 jet at around 9:20 AM on Nov. 24 U.S. leadership has called for de-escalation.

During a White House press conference with French President Hollande President Obama said “My top priority is going to be to ensure that this does not escalate. Hopefully this is a moment in which all parties can step back and make a determination of how their interests are best served.” Both President Hollande and President Obama also acknowledged Turkey’s right to defend its territory and airspace.

In a press brief held on Nov. 24th Pentagon spokesperson Army Col. Steve Warren emphatically distanced the U.S. military operations against ISIL from the incident saying “This is Turkey and Russia. This is their incident. Our focus is on ISIL.” He further emphasized “This is an incident between the Russian and Turkish governments… our combat operations against ISIL continue as planned and we a striking in both Iraq and Syria.”

The New York Times also reports that during an emergency closed-door NATO meeting held in Brussels hours after the incident a Turkish official played an audio recording of the warnings issued by the Turkish F-16 pilots to the Russian jet in question.

Following this meeting Reuters reports that an unnamed diplomat disclosed that while none of the 28 NATO envoys defended Russia’s actions many expressed concern that Turkey did not escort the Russian warplane out of its airspace specifically noting “There are other ways of dealing with these kinds of incidents.”

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council Turkish UN Ambassador Halit Çevik wrote “Turkey will not hesitate to exercise its rights emanating from international law to protect the security of its citizens and borders in compliance with the established rules and regulations.”

Since the onset of Russian involvement in Syria Russia has repeatedly violated Turkish airspace despite warnings to desist. On October 5th Turkey scrambled its F-16 fighter jets and summoned the Russian ambassador in protest of one such incident. CBS News reports a senior U.S. defense official disclosing “Obviously along with quite a bit of Russia’s behavior in Syria right now this just confirms our deep concern over what they’re doing and continues to call into question their intent and certainly raises questions about basic safe combat professional behavior in the skies. I don’t believe this was an accident.”

Following the downing of a suspected Russian drone on October 16th Prime Minister AhmetDavutolu said “This incident [...] has shown that Turkey both has the capacity and the political will to put an end to such violations. I hope Russia whose friendship and neighborliness we value will adopt a more careful stance and Turkish-Russian relations will not be negatively affected.”

Despite U.S. calls to the contrary with Putin’s rhetoric characterizing the incident as a “stab in the back” the degree to which Turkish-Russian relations have been adversely affected are apparent.