generalspeaking

"Accomplices of Terrorists"

"Our military is doing heroic work against terrorism … But the loss today is a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists. I can’t describe it in any other way. Do they want to make NATO serve ISIS?"
"We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don’t know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from NATO to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours."
Russian President Vladimir Putin

"There were two airspace violations [in the past few weeks], and after that a very high-level Russian military delegation came to Turkey to talk about it, including a top air force official. They apologized for one of the incidents, saying that in that case the Russian pilot didn’t speak the language. So we thought we had an understanding and solved the problem."
"So it’s a surprise that it happened since that visit. But it’s not a surprise in terms of Russian strategy. Since the intervention the Russians have been testing the Turkish response at its borders and its rules of engagement."
"In this case, the pilot was warned a number of times. First at 13 miles out from the Turkish border, and then at five miles out, which is when Turkish jets scramble. It went past all those thresholds."
Sinan Ülgen,  Chairman, Edam think tank, Istanbul

Actions have consequences, a simple formula that can be relied upon in all circumstances, but which fundamentalist Islamists appear to have great difficulty appreciating. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears particularly assailed by the passion of sanctimonious righteousness, acting on his emotions with little regard for what comes next. Turkey was not so long ago proud of its robust economy, and it owes much of that to its trade with Russia. The strongman of Moscow has now addressed the strongman of Ankara about consequences.

This is a situation whose belligerent outcome is serious. Not only did the Turkish military shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane bombing Turkish-assisted rebels in Syria, but it effectively created a situation where Turkic rebels responded to being bombed by shooting the pilot and navigator of the falling jet as they parachuted away onto Syrian ground. Moreover, when Russian marines in a rescue Mi-8 helicopter attempted to find the navigator and pilot, that aircraft too came under fire, killing one of the marines, according to Lt.Gen.Sergei Rudskoi.

Hell to pay? Hell, yes!

Claims that the Russian warplane entered Turkish airspace? Counterclaims that Turkish warplanes had violated Syrian airspace while shooting down the Russian plane.

Turkey owes a lot of its hefty trade to Russia; it has become up until this moment, the number one tourism destination for Russians who formerly flocked to Egypt. Four percent of Turkey's food and textile exports to a value of $6-billion went to Russia in 2014. Turkey is the second-largest consumer of Russian natural gas after Germany. Russia supplies oil and oil products to Turkey, its fourth-largest supplier in 2013. Turkey, along with Egypt, is the largest buyer of Russian wheat, Russian steel and semi-finished products.

Russia and Turkey share the TurkStream pipeline project which was launched as an alternative to transporting gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine. It is very, very hard to see where Erdogan's passion will not come back to haunt Turkey in ways that will do quite a bit of harm to its lagging economy. Mr. Erdogan is not known for his humble character, his capacity to admit fault, his ability to apologize and to make an effort at amends. 

 

Which should make for some interesting geopolitical fallout in the near future.

An image of the fighter jet crashing shown by Turkish TV...  EPA

In the wake of this unfortunate event when two countries with so much in common have come to verbal blows, the United States has recommended that Russia concentrate its airstrikes on the Islamic State group, and should that occur errors would be "less likely to occur". (Smacks of schadenfreude, doesn't it now?)

There is an ironic backstop to this story; the Turkic rebels finished what the Turkish government started. After all, if Moscow remains intent on shoring up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to continue targeting his own citizens by bombing the rebels whom Turkey supports we can think back to Mr. Putin's comments about ethnic Russians in eastern Europe requiring Russia's support against 'discrimination'.

Since Turkmen rebel forces in Syria claim to have shot the warplane's pilots parachuting to the ground it can be assumed that the jet had been targeting them. Russian support of the butchering  Bashar al-Assad has been attacking rebel targets in Syria since September and Turkey had reportedly complained to Russia as recently as last Friday about operations taking place too close to its border.

The irony screams here; Russia's belligerence in Ukraine and eastern Europe links to its reminder that ethnic Russians may be at 'risk' there, because of discrimination, justifying its strong-arm methods. They're clearly not the only national-ethnic support in town.