NATO Council To Hold Talks Over the Downing of Turkish Jet By Syria

NATO Council

NATO on Monday announced that it would hold emergency talks on Tuesday over the downing of a Turkish plane by the Syrian anti-aerial batteries over the weekend but a decision on the matter is not expected to be made in the sense of a military intervention in retaliation against Syria.

The downing of the plane drew strong criticism from the U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton, who said that it was reflecting the “callous disregard” of the Syrian regime for the international norms, “human life, peace and security.”

Hillary Clinton added that America will be in close contact with the Turkish authorities, so that it may assist them in the decision on what kind of response Turkey will offer for the downing of the plane.

The Turkish authorities on Saturday promised to have a response to the incident but were reluctant to say what it was or whether it was military in nature. The U.S. State Secretary even spoke of action by the United Nations Security Council to hold Assad’s regime accountable for this.

The Turkish authorities recovered parts of the wreckage of the F-4 jet but the pilots are still missing. The Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu said that the plane was training in the international waters, verifying its radar capacities, not spying on Syria.

The entering in the Syrian waters is considered by the Turkish authorities an honest mistake, which are easily made by this kind of speedy jets. Davutoglu said that the jet was out of the Syrian waters when it was shot down, after the Turkish authorities warned the pilots about the trespassing.

The Syrian authorities said that the downing of the plane was not an attack and that the Turkish jet had entered their national space. Turkey contended that the jet had not been warned about the entering of the airspace and that the Syrian air forces did not confront it.

The Turkish president on Saturday commented on the incident that had happened a day before by saying that even though the plane might have entered the Syrian space, the Syrian forces should not have brought it down, as this kind of incidents happen all the time in the world.

On Tuesday, the North Atlantic Council, which is composed by the 28 ambassadors of the NATO countries and is the governing body of the military organization, will be convened on the grounds of the Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that whenever a member state demands a consultation over possible threats to its territorial integrity, political independence or security.

Turkey invoked the Article 4 in 2003, in relation to the escalation of the tension with Iraq. That consultation did not lead to an invocation of Article 5, which authorizes the use of force against a country which threatens a member of NATO.

In other development, dozens of members of Syria military crossed into Turkey with their families, defecting from the army of the former regime. 224 people crossed into Turkey, 33 soldiers among them.11