The latest development in the downing of a Turkish military aircraft by Syria last Friday seems to be
an interview with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's foreign minister says a Turkish jet was downed in international airspace after it mistakenly entered Syria, but the plane was not on a spying mission.
Ahmet Davutoglu says the plane entered Syrian airspace on Friday, but quickly left when warned by Turkey.
He says the plane had no "covert mission related to Syria," and it was purely on a training flight to test Turkey's radar capabilities.
Davutoglu says the plane was shot down by Syria in "international airspace" several minutes after it left.
He spoke on state-run TRT television Sunday, two days after the downing of the jet in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Syria on Saturday insisted the shooting down of the plane was "not an attack," and that the plane had violated its airspace.
With all that in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but notice this morning's cover of
Sözcü, one of the daily papers that consistently takes a critical line of the government and is one of the most outspoken opponents of what they decry as the dismantling of Turkey's secular system.
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| Front page, Sözcü 24 June 2012 |
The main headline reads, "America's plan is being put into play!... The excuse is ready, 'High Five' for Syria. The downing of our plane has buttered the United State's bread, intervention in Syria is on the doorstep. Now the button is going to be pressed!"
Caught up as the United States is in its presidential election cycle, it might seem strange that events are seen as part of an American plan. It's hard to underestimate, however, the extent to which Turkey's possible intervention in the Syria conflict is understood in terms not of its domestic interests but in terms of its being beholden to American interests.
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| Cover, Uykusuz, 12 April 2012, "We're warning Syria for the last time!" |
However one looks at the situation, it's a difficult one.
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