Iraq Accuses Turkey of Pushing the World to the Brink of a Global Conflict After Downing Russian Warplane and Says Turkey's Own Planes Violate Iraqi and Syrian Airspace Every Day; Analyst Says Russia Regularly Probes and Illegally Enters the Airspace of Other NATO Members to Test Air Defenses
Turkey risks sparking world war, says Iraq's Maliki
November 26, 2015AFP - Iraqi Vice President Nuri al-Maliki Thursday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of pushing the world to the brink of a global conflict after Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane.
Maliki, a former prime minister who remains very influential, lashed out at Erdogan after Turkey shot down a Russian jet it said briefly violated its airspace during operations in northern Syria on Tuesday.
"Erdogan claims that a Russian aircraft entered Turkey's airspace for a few seconds, forgetting that its own planes violate Iraqi and Syrian airspace every day," he said in a statement.
Turkish
fighter jets have in recent months carried out a series of deadly
strikes against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in their
bases in the north of Iraq.
"Erdogan's double standards and aggressive policies are threatening a new world war," he said.
The
authorities in Baghdad have long accused Ankara of playing a key role
in the rise of the Islamic State group, which took over entire regions
of Syria and Iraq over the past two years.
Maliki and his allies among Tehran-backed Shiite militia groups battling IS jihadists see Moscow as a key ally and have welcomed Russia's growing involvement in the regional conflict.
The downing of the Russian jet has threatened ties between two major rival players in the Syrian war and raised fears it could fuel wider geopolitical conflict, although both Ankara and Moscow have stressed they want to avoid military escalation.
Turkey Shoot-Down Shows How Putin Pushes the Envelope
November 25, 2015The Anadolu agency reported that seven people were killed and 10 wounded in strikes that it said hit a Turkish convoy taking supplies to refugees in the town on Wednesday.
It is unclear who carried out the attacks, though some on the ground asserted that Russia was behind the strike. The Turkish-based IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation has a team working in the area and also made claims that the strikes came from Russian planes.
They tweeted photos of the aftermath and rescue efforts that show emergency responders struggling to extinguish the flames.
Footage posted by Syrian activists based in Azaz shows images of a convoy of trucks engulfed in flames.
Syrian regime forces have also been carrying out strikes in the area in recent weeks.
The strike on the aid convoy comes one day after Turkish forces downed a Russian jet that allegedly crossed into Turkey while conducting strikes in Syria. Turkey shot down the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 military plan and rebels on the ground shot and killed one of the pilots as he parachuted to the ground, intensifying tensions in the region.
Russia said the plane had stayed above Syria while Turkey said it had encroached upon Turkish airspace, and that it warned the Russian plane "10 times in five minutes" about the airspace violation before two Turkish F-16s shot it down.
Russian warplanes have been conducting airstrikes in the region for days, The Turkmen Mountain region near Azaz was the target of Syrian government offensive recently, under the cover of Russian air strikes.
Turkmen civilians in the area have also reportedly been targeted by Russian air strikes in the region in recent days. One week ago, Prime Minister Davutoglu condemned the attacks in the area, after the foreign ministry said Turkmen civilians were were subjected to “heavy bombardment” by Russian planes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported earlier intensive Russian airstrikes in Azaz on Wednesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking to the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said that the act by Turkey will have "serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations and will not go unanswered," according to a statement released by the Kremlin.
PJ Media - There is a much bigger lesson to be learned from Turkey's downing of a Russian jet than that Moscow’s pilots need better map-reading skills. This latest incident stands as object lesson in how Russians conduct foreign policy.
For starters, start by believing this was a deliberate provocation on the part of Putin.
Further, the Russians were well aware they were encroaching on Turkish airspace.
But it is not just about the air up there. Russia has a well-established habit of elbowing itself into where it wants to go. That is exactly what they did in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014). They tested Estonia in a 2007 cyber-attack.
Moscow also is practiced at elbowing others out of the way. In 2011, for example, Russian military intelligence was responsible for a bomb blast at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, sending the White House a not-so-subtle signal.
Make no mistake that what the latest incident shows is how Moscow plays with others—it pushes the envelope to see what it can get away with—and Russia will do that anywhere and everywhere Russia has an interest to advance.
Predictably, when Turkey pushed back, Moscow tried to change the story with its well-practiced policy of obscuring bad behavior with disinformation. In this case, Putin’s line is that Turkey is protecting ISIS. “Our troops are fighting heroically against terrorists, risking their lives. But the loss we suffered today came from a stab in the back delivered by accomplices of the terrorists,” Putin proclaimed.
While there may be some on the Turkish side that have some “murky connections” with regional bad guys, that is not really Putin’s problem. He is just trying to change the subject. That is what Moscow always does when it muscles others around—Putin magically becomes the good guy.
Russian airstrikes reportedly target Turkish aid convoy in Syria
November 26, 2015