SYRIA: Syria has been the boiling pot where regional and world powers stretch their muscles to claim their interests in the region. Only last week, a Russian fighter jet operating over Syria’s northern skies got shot down by Turkey’s air defense forces, an incident that led to international community mounting concerns and grew tensions between Russia and Turkey.
From his side, President Vladimir Putin described the accident as a “stab in the back” from a major Russian economic partner and neighbor. Putin went further explaining that such move by Turkey will not hold Russia back from continuing its war against ISIS and armed Islamists in Syria. Russia, will in-turn, reinforce its operations and deploy sophisticated S-400 air-defense-missile-systems to insure the safety of its troops and their allies. Moreover, Putin went on by criticizing the Turkish role in Syria, questioning the continuous flow of recruits and supplies to ISIS through its borders, urging Turkey to focus more on fighting terrorism, instead of downing Russian planes that are plainly fighting armed militias and have no interests in Turkish borders.
Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov and other officials announced right after the incident how messy the situation was, and blamed the Turkish side for its hurried response, stating that Turkey could have communicated with Russia before taking like-wise decisions, instead of quickly howling to UN’s security council after shooting down the fighter jet. As they assured that “the plane flew over Syrian territory, did not enter Turkish borders, and survived Russian captain Konstantin Murahtin confirmed that they haven’t received any warnings from the Turks.”
Officials also stated that Turkey is one of the main countries enforcing terrorism in Syria, with held evidence of smuggling Syrian oil sold in black markets, and providing intelligence and military support for militias, against it. The shot-down of the fighter jet only came as retaliation after the Russian air- force destroyed an oil-packed convoy headed from Syria to Turkish borders. As warnings of economic sanctions and suspension of diplomatic relations arose…
Turkey, with an offensive attitude, claimed the fighter jet had mysteriously violated Turkish air-space and was warned 10 times before launching missiles towards. Raceb Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President declared, in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson, that he condemned the Russian reaction to recent distress, refused to officially apologize on behalf of his government, and dared those who raised claims of Turkey benefiting from Syrian oil to present their evidence to the public. Still Erdogan tended to de-escalate the situation and called for needed conciliation between the two sides…
Russia is Turkey’s 2nd largest economic partner after Germany, as vital significant oil and gas deals between both countries remain on the edge, expectedly, this episode will only worsen economic ties and might ascend the catastrophe to an international level. Russia clamped-down by cutting diplomatic ties, imports of Turkish food commodities, as it also shut its average 3.5 million tourists annual flow to Turkey, and several other sanctions all expected to put Turkey under pressure and give way for Russian forces and their allies on Syrian grounds in the coming weeks.
