Turkish F16 shoots down unidentified aircraft in their airspace.

[peekay4]

Just in.

Statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:

"We stand in solidarity with Turkey, and support the territorial integrity of our ally, Turkey"

He calls for calm and for all parties to contribute to de-escalating the situation.

[PersonFromPorlock]

"The downed fighter jet was warned 10 times in 5 minutes according to a statement released by the Turkish Armed Forces."

Back in the Cold War, Soviet military aircraft didn't have the same Guard frequency as Western planes, supposedly to make defections by their pilots harder. Given the power of inertia and the cost of equipment upgrades, does anyone know for sure that Russian military planes now monitor the frequencies the Turks would have been transmitting on?

[Karel_x]

At what stage did the missile hit the aircraft?

Russians told that plane was hit by missile 1 km inside Syrian airspace. I am very disappointed by Turkish action. The plane cross Turkish airspace for 17s - how can they warn him many timed during 5 minutes? If really, how could he understand that the warnings are targeting to him if he was at this time deep in Syrian airspace?

[peekay4]

Full NATO Secretary General statement below:

The North Atlantic Council has just held a meeting, an extraordinary meeting. And we have been updated by the Turkish Ambassador on the recent events. I have also spoken to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Turkey informed Allies about the downing of a Russian Air Force plane violating Turkish airspace.

I have previously expressed my concerns about the implications of the military actions of the Russian Federation close to NATO’s borders.

This highlights the importance of having and respecting arrangements to avoid such incidents in the future.

As we have repeatedly made clear, we stand in solidarity with Turkey and support the territorial integrity of our NATO Ally, Turkey.

We will continue to follow the developments on the South-Eastern borders of NATO very closely.

I look forward to further contacts between Ankara and Moscow and I call for calm and de-escalation.

Diplomacy and de-escalation are important to resolve this situation.

Good backgrounder / history of the situation from Al Jazeera:

Analysis: Downing of Russian jet hardly a surprise - Al Jazeera English

[skridlov]

Turkey's contributions

It's worth pointing out that when the insurgency against the Syrian regime began Turkey was one of the first countries to pour gasoline on the flames. A high proportion of the foreign jihadis charging into Syria did so via Turkey, which imposed no limits as far as I'm aware. Indeed Turkish taxis were kept very busy ferrying them to the Turkish/Syrian border. From the reports published in UK news media just about all of our home-grown - ie second or third generation British - recruits to the self-styled Islamic state travelled to Syria via Turkish airports. Despite which we're now offering Turkey relaxed EU visa restrictions in exchange for their "assistance" in controlling the exodus of migrants leaving Syria, the ingress of further jihadis and their provision of facilities such as those at Incirlik. This is a pretty good illustration of the insane contradictions in play within this situation.

Yet another is the Kurdish paradox. Up to now the main effective opposition to Daesh has come from the Kurdish militias (note the plural), a military force whose previous experience has primarily been gained in decades of internecine fighting - far more than against the Turkish military. The Turks would rather see almost any outcome that doesn't include increased military capability for the Kurds who have been playing a very long game for decades and who are the only likely beneficiaries of this crazy conflict.

Meanwhile we keep hearing about "supporting the moderate opposition" in Syria - as if this chaotic patchwork quilt of competing loyalties and objectives could be neatly sub-divided into "good guys" and "bad guys". This reminds me a bit of the Thatcher government's support of the "moderate Khmer Rouge" seat at the UN. Given the extremely long term relationship between Russia (and previously the USSR) and the successive Syrian Baathist governments it's hardly surprising that they have chosen to offer their support to the current regime. You don't have to like Putin's gang of robber-barons to see this as rational self-interest and foreign policy consistency.

We hear a great deal about how the brutality of the Assad regime is solely responsible for the chaos in Syria as if, even if correct, this was something new. Recall that in 1982 Bashar Assad's father and uncle confronted a previous insurgency by the Muslim Brotherhood by comprehensively exterminating it - killing more than 20K of its adherents in the city of Hama. End of Islamic insurgency with about 10% of the fatalities already incurred in the current conflict. And the West's response at that time? To allow Rifaat Assad (Hafez's brother and head of the security services) to set up home in London. He now lives in Paris; it would be interesting indeed to hear his opinion of the current catastrophe.

The great thing about the West's standards is that we have so many to chose from.

[DH_call]

Maybe the Putin just needed a reminder that Turkey is not the Ukraine or Georgia and that when they say stay off our property they actually have the means and the fortitude to follow up on it.

[Staller]

Lets not forget this..

Russia says patrols near UK airspace were 'routine' - BBC News

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said there had been a sharp increase in the number of times Russian planes were intercepted by members.
He said: "Last year, allied aircraft intercepted Russian planes over 400 times. Over 150 of these intercepts were conducted by Nato's Baltic air policing mission. That's about four times as many as in 2013. So we are staying vigilant."

It was only really a matter of time.

[silvertate]

Turkish actions inexcusable

Turkey responsible for the problem in the first place? Perhaps you missed the bit where Russia compromised Turkeyish airspace.

The Russian jet was quite obviously circling a target well to the south of the Turkish border. In doing so, it inadvertently passed through a small pimple of Turkish airspace. (See the map, a couple of pages back.) And the Russian crew did not hear the Turkish warnings, which were either spoken in Turkish or terrible English (not met a Turkish military pilot yet, who spoke clear English.)

Quite clearly, the Russian jet was not a threat to Turkey or the Turkish F-16. What did they think it would do - suddenly turn right and bomb Antakya? Frankly, this act is such a violation of common sense and logic, that Turkey deserves whatever it gets from this - which will probably involve an unavoidable break in gas supplies from Russia during January, due to 'technical problems'.

.

As to Turkey being 'strategic', just who are the real allies of Turkey? Who will come to their aid, if they are in trouble?? The Greeks to the west dislike them. Russia to the north now dislikes them. Kurds to the east dislike them. Arabs to the south east have long regarded the Turks as inferior. Cypriots to the south dislike them. Israelies to the south dislike them. Assad in Syria has long distrusted them. Most of Europe is wary of them and distrusts them.

So why is Turkey in any way strategic? Who would come to their aid, if they got into trouble? Who would worry, if they fell on hard times?

ST

[Hotel Tango]

Mr Putin hasn't been my flavour of the month for a long time, however, in this particular case I believe the Turkish authorities completely overreacted. The Russian aircraft was not targeting Turkey. What's now even more shocking is that NATO is defending Turkey when they should in fact be telling them not to be so bloody stupid ever again!

[angels]

Russia was only targeting the terrorists. Period.

Nonsense. When they started the bombing campaign the Russian Defence Ministry said, "Warplanes targeted eight ISIS positions, "including arms, transportation, communications and control positions."

They lied.

No ISIS positions were targeted. The Syrians themselves gave the game away by saying, the Russians bombed, "ISIS dens in al-Rastan, Talbeisa, al-Zaafran, al-Tolol al-Humr, Aydon, Deir Fol and the area surrounding Salmia..."

None of those areas were remotely under ISIS control. All of them were under rebel control. The same rebels who ISIS have been attacking since they were formed. The Russians were bombing the rebels to keep Assad in power. And ISIS were helping keep Assad in power by attacking the rebels!

It soon became obvious to anyone what the Russians were doing so they started flinging a few dumb bombs at soft ISIS targets. But because the Russians were attacking the rebels ISIS actually took a lot of ground around Aleppo.

And then Metrojet happened and Putin started hitting ISIS hard.

So what was today's plane doing so close to the Turkish border in Latakia? It wasn't bombing ISIS, it was attacking people who are fighting ISIS. Why? Turkey has complained of svereal violations of their airspace during the bombing campaign. What would Russia do if a Turkish plane flew into Russian airspace following a series of other airspace violations?

The Kremlin keeps changing it's stories to fit whatever agenda they are trying to pursue. Do you really think they wand to give up Tartus?

[West Coast]

I know its human nature, but there's an awful lot of conjecture here from people armed with nothing more than press reports trying to unravel things they don't have a full grasp of.

This is why pprune is for entertainment purposes only.

[just a pax]

How does the rules and regulations applies to this map which BBC publishes?
A 17 sec intrusion of Turkish airspace and then a missiles hit over Syria/Russian controlled space?

Would it be ok if it was fired within Turkey territory but hit the Russian Su-24 outside?
Or could that be seen as a hostile action from Turkey?

[c53204]

With Russian military aircraft frequently skirting close to several countries airspace, it was only a matter of time before this happened.

Maybe Putin might call a halt to these flights - hopefully that will happen, rather than the other option.

[Kulverstukas]

None of those areas were remotely under ISIS control. All of them were under rebel control.

You mean "moderate terrorists"? What is the difference between ISIS and "rebels"?

Also I don't really like Kaddafi, but similar "rebels" win over him in Libya, now it's happy and profitable democratic country contrary to what it was then.

[ExDubai]

As to Turkey being 'strategic', just who are the real allies of Turkey? Who will come to their aid, if they are in trouble?? The Greeks to the west dislike them. Russia to the north now dislikes them. Kurds to the east dislike them. Arabs to the south east have long regarded the Turks as inferior. Cypriots to the south dislike them. Israelies to the south dislike them. Assad in Syria has long distrusted them. Most of Europe is wary of them and distrusts them.

What about the US ? Incirlik is one of the important airbases for them. At the end of the day, Turkey is a NATO member and that counts a lot, they trust Erdogan much more then Putin.

[16024]

@ West coast, above.
Well Quite, but the Ne in PPRuNe relates to "network", and as a collation point for a diverse set of facts it can be useful.

@ G-CPTN

If you confront an intruder, are you entitled to shoot them after they have left your premises?

Worth pointing out that here in civilization, you aren't entitled to shoot intruders at all.

[Photonic]

"So why is Turkey in any way strategic?"

One reason Russia is involved here at all, is to preserve its one Naval base in Syria with access to the Med, and its one airfield in Syria.

Those planes need fuel. The way fuel gets there is on tankers from the Black Sea, through the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, smack dab in the middle of northern Turkey. Russia's options are limited if they want to preserve those bases in Syria, and not have to send oil tankers around the long way from its North Fleet bases in the arctic.

[JCviggen]

You mean "moderate terrorists"? What is the difference between ISIS and "rebels"?

Well quite a few of the rebel groups consider ISIS an enemy, for a start. However Assad would consider them all terrorists as they are all against him.

There is definitely a different point of view of who is a terrorist depending on who you ask, the Turks would definitely disagree on the Turkmen being terrorists but would probably call the Kurds terrorists while the US and Russia would not. It's one big mix and the label "terrorist" is really more about who is on whose side than on what they are actually doing.

Anyway, Syria is a big country with lots of baddies to bomb. Without detracting from the fact that Turkey was completely in the wrong to shoot down this plane, why does Russia feel the need to do things which it knows Turkey is very very annoyed about already? The Turks protested incursions weeks ago, and just this Friday complained about the targeting of people it considers on "their" side. Did Russia take any of that into account, or did they simply carry on as always and fly right on top (and probably just across) of a country that has shown itself to be too trigger happy already. Why the need to ignore Turkey's anger and put trust in them not to overreact? How hard is it to stay a couple miles further away?

[angels]

What is the difference between ISIS and "rebels"?

Quite a lot actually. You're an intelligent man (your posts on Metrojet were invaluable), so you work it out. Here's some differences for starters.

One group plants bombs on Russian planes, the other doesn't.

One group launches attacks in Paris, Beirut, Ankara and other places, the other doesn't.

One lot were in cahoots with Assad (he let them into the Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus) and the others aren't.

And one group fights the other -- quite a large difference that.

Do you wish to deny any of the above?

Also, I repeat,

So what was today's plane doing so close to the Turkish border in Latakia? It wasn't bombing ISIS, it was attacking people who are fighting ISIS. Why? Turkey has complained of svereal violations of their airspace during the bombing campaign. What would Russia do if a Turkish plane flew into Russian airspace following a series of other airspace violations?

[AreOut]

Russia deploys missile cruiser off Syria coast, ordered to destroy any target posing danger

https://www.rt.com/news/323329-russi...litary-turkey/

just what we needed now... couple of F16s shot down and this could go down the drain pretty fast...