There is no stopping on the Middle East crisis as two battling countries, Russia and Turkey accused each other of deviousness due to the Turkey’s downing of Russia’s warplane.
In heated exchanges of allegations and accusations, Turkey, a member of NATO justified its shooting action by claiming that its pilots had “repeatedly warned the Russian warplane”, which ignored the warnings, while flying on Turkish airspace.
The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly condemned Russia for violating its airspace and its act an infringement of Turkey’s sovereignty.
On Russia’s side, it counteracted the Turkish claims, when its rescued co-pilot Capt. Konstantin Murakhtin reported to the state media – Sputnik News Agency of the absence of the warnings “ not via the radio, not visually” such as Turkey’s plane flying in parallel but shooting on the ground instead. Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov added that Turkey’s downing of the warplane is a planned and premeditated act.
After the bomber downing, and in the midst of the Turkish President accusation of Russia of deceit, Russia threatened to deploy its anti-aircraft missiles to Syria. According to Sergey Shoygu, Russian Defense Minister, his country will be sending S-400 defense missile systems to Russia’s Hmeymim Airbase near Latakia at Syria’s Mediterranean Coast.
If launched, the Russian missiles can reach a target range of 250 kilometers or 155 miles, (missilethreat.com website) and the Turkish border is within its range, which is less than 30 miles away.
Experts of the political crisis in the Middle East described this current incident as an “alarming wave of international turbulence”. This is not just a tension between the two countries, Russia and Turkey. The incident involves and revolves around the whole gamut of the so called “anti- ISIS” military campaign in war – torn Syria.
Russia is being accused by Turkey that its involvement in the Syrian war is propping up the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad regime against its own people. While, Turkey is being labeled by Russia as the “terrorists’ accomplices” when it shot the Russian plane on an “anti-terrorism mission”.
