Back in November, Turkey very nearly started a world war when Ankara decided it would be a good idea to shoot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border.
Only one of the two Su-24 pilots survived after the plane was ambushed by two Turkish F-16s.
The other pilot was killed by the Syrian resistance and in a brazen move, the FSA destroyed a Russian search and rescue helicopter with a US-supplied TOW hours after the plane was downed.
That incident triggered a rather heated war of words between Ankara and Moscow, with The Kremlin launching a PR campaign that accused Turkey of aiding and abetting Islamic State by, among other things, facilitating the group’s illicit oil trafficking business.
Since then, Russia has also deployed S-400 advanced missile defense systems to Latakia which effectively means that Turkish F-16s are no longer allowed in the skies above Syria.
Well, just when you thought the tensions between Erdogan and Putin were calming down, Turkey has summoned the Russian ambassador over what Ankara claims was another violation of Turkish airspace by Russian jets.
“Turkey said Saturday that a Russian warplane breached its airspace, accusing Moscow of seeking to escalate tensions and warning of consequences two months after Turkish F-16s downed a Russian jet for violating its territory from Syria,” WSJ reports. “A Russian Su-34 entered Turkey’s airspace at 11:46 a.m. local time on Friday, despite repeated warnings from Turkish radar operators in Russian and English, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara said in an emailed statement Saturday.”
“We are issuing an explicit and clear call to the Russian Federation to act responsibly in the matter of not violating the Turkish airspace, and therefore NATO airspace,” Turkey said, as though Russia had somehow forgotten that Turkey was a NATO member.
For their part, the Russians took to Microsoft Paint to provide “proof” that the allegations are without merit.
BREAKING: #Russia‘s MoD publishes evidence which proves Russian #Su34 didn’t violate #Turkey‘s airspace #BackStabbed http://pic.twitter.com/vBXjfozEJB
— Sputnik (@Sputnik_Not) January 30, 2016
We hope cooler heads will prevail in Ankara this time around because if Erdogan shoots down another Russian plane, they’ll be long range bombers over Erdogan’s $615 million palace.
In any event, we’re sure Erdogan will write this off as a misunderstanding.
After all, it was the Turkish President himself who in 2012 said “a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack.”
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1PLQUUm Tyler Durden