The Assad crisis

The government had earlier said the jet was shot down by a missile 13 miles off the Syrian coast. Syria, on the other hand, said it was flying low and fast when it was hit well within Syrian airspace by anti-aircraft fire. And yet as the pieces from the wreckage of the plane were found in Syrian waters, the government is expected to drop its insistence on its argument that the plane was hit outside Syria’s 12-mile airspace.

Turkey’s interest in the ongoing political crisis in Syria can be regarded as normal considering that there are thousands of people at our border, waiting for this crisis to end, Akşam daily columnist Deniz Ülke Arıboğan says. However the problem emerges when other countries such as Russia, China, the US, Iran and Israel get involved in this issue more than us. “The problem is that the Syrian crisis includes all other issues such as energy corridors, the Kurdish issue, sectarian fighting and military balance in the Mediterranean. The problem is that in a world that has lost its balance, winds blowing with the intention of bringing spring to the Arab world have clashed with winds blowing in the opposite direction and have turned into a devastating storm,” Arıboğan says.

However, when all of this hopefully ends, there is no reason for Turkey to have a bad relationship with Syria in the post-Assad period. Russia may still be active in the country and the Western allies’ control over the country may still continue, but Turkey doesn’t have to have problems with Syria as today our only problem is with Assad. And the downed jet crisis is surely a provocative act aiming at damaging Turkey’s bond with Syrian people, she says.

Hadi Uluengin from Taraf says in his article titled “Two denials: One is true, one is wrong” that now that the wreckage of our downed jet was found in Syrian waters, it is clear that the Turkish military jet indeed entered Syrian airspace either for testing its radar system or for obtaining intelligence and was shot down there. And yet of course Turkey is supposed to deny the claims that our jet was flying in order to gather intelligence if that’s the real case. But on the other hand, whether it was for the purpose of gathering intelligence or for the purpose of testing our radar system, our jet did indeed enter Syrian airspace and was shot down there, and denying this fact will only put Turkey in a difficult position and make Turkey’s denials about the jet’s purpose less believable, he says.