Saturday 20th of April 2024
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an international incident...

turkish delight

It's quite dizzying trying to understand both sides of the argument. The Turks supposed to have warned the Russian plane of an incursion into their Turkish Airspace. The Russians claim they never received such warming.

When looking at the map of the supposed incident, in which a Turkish plane shot down a Russian plane, one would have to admit that even if the Russian plane had gone through Turkish airspace, it would have taken the Russian Plane less than 30 seconds to cross the sliver indicated by the Turks. There would have been very little time for any communication of value. By the time the Russian pilots could reply, they were shot down. 

It is likely that the Turkish plane was shadowing the Russians for a while without warning. The Turkish planes would have had to be in Syrian airspace in order to shoot the Russian plane thus the incursion was in reverse.

As well what language was used to transmit the warnings? Such "recording" as presented by the Turks can be manufactured easily after the event. 

As well one has to ask, which radio frequency was used to transmit such "warming".

Basically, when one analises this "incident" the Turks had no "rights" to down a Russian plane. Except to promote a political advantage on Turkmen territories.

smuggling weapons

 

Russia and Turkey have been fighting a proxy war in Syria for several months. After the downing of the Russian jet, they are now in direct conflict with one another. Middle East analyst, Professor Juan Cole, examines the geo-politics behind the escalating crisis.​ 

THE TURKISH government decision to down a Russian jet operating in the north of the Syrian province of Latakia is breathtaking in its boldness. Russia may no longer be a superpower, but it is a nuclear-armed great power.

The newly elected Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his mentor President Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey can rule without the help of any other party in parliament, and seems determined to double down on its policy of intervening in Syria.

The Davutoglu government risks substantial economic harm. Russian tourism has boosted the Turkish economy, and Russia was planning an important gas pipeline through Turkey as well as the building for Ankara of a nuclear power reactor. All those activities have just been cancelled, and tour operators in Russia are looking for other tourist markets after pressure from the Putin government. 

Russia is attributing the attack to an attempt by Turkish officials to protect gasoline smuggling routes from Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) to Turkey, but the geography of the shoot-down tells against this interpretation. This was near al-Qaeda territory in the northwest, not Daesh territory in the northeast, and the issue is arms smuggling, not oil smuggling.

 

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/why-turkey-sh...

 

Meanwhile:

Russia has rejected Turkey's claims that it did not know the plane it shot down on the Syria border was Russian.

President Vladimir Putin said Russian planes were easily identifiable and the jet's flight co-ordinates had been passed on to Turkey's ally, the US.

Turkey's president said earlier if it had known the plane was Russian "maybe we would have warned it differently".

Mr Putin was speaking after meeting his French counterpart and pledging closer co-operation against Islamic State.

read more

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34940109

 

oil...

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ankara of shooting down a Russian warplane to protect supplies of oil from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group to Turkey.

"We have every reason to think that the decision to shoot down our plane was dictated by the desire to protect the oil supply lines to Turkish territory," Putin said during a news conference on Monday on the fringes of UN climate talks near Paris.

"We have received additional information which unfortunately confirms that this oil, produced in areas controlled by [ISIL] and other terrorist organisations, is transported on an industrial scale to Turkey."

Putin's strongly worded statement came hours after Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu again refused to apologise for the downing of the plane near the Syrian border last Tuesday.

read mor: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/putin-turkey-shot-jet-protect-isil-oil-supply-151130191513006.html

 

It's likely that the oil is paid in weapons going from Turkey to the terrorists......

 

playing a double game...

In September 2015, IS seized the last major oilfield under Syrian government control in a desert area north-west of the ancient city of Palymra and a region that holds Syria's main natural gas fields and multi-million dollar extraction facilities.

Since taking control of key areas of Syria and Iraq last year, IS has developed an illicit trade in oil sales.

Many security analysts believe there is a huge black market for IS oil in the West.

"Islamic State's barbaric conquests are financed by collaborators among the business and financial circles of the West," wrote Dr Norman Bailey, of the Centre for National Security Studies and Geostrategy at Haifa University in Israel.

"Buyers are readily found in the West and tanker trucks are permitted to reach ports where oil tankers are waiting to load it.

"All this requires ready, willing and able collaborators among the business and financial circles of the West as well as surrounding countries."

Dr Bailey was reluctant to name the ports or countries involved.

"This is not the place to name names, but the buyers and the facilitators and the financiers are not that difficult to identify, so that if the opponents of Islamic State were really serious about doing something about it, along with the occasional bombing raid, the IS could be starved of funds," he wrote.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-01/is-turkey-is-buying-oil-smuggled-by-islamic-state/6991526