Serpentine
INT'L MOD
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Mate, let me share my opinion on that matter.
You know Syria downed our jet 2012 for briefly violating Syrian airspace. You know, you normally warn the tresspasser, send your jets to intercept and escort the violator out of your airspace. So, when these guys downed our Jet, we changed our RoE regarding Syrian border only. After that we shot 1 Syrian Helicopter and Jet for trespassing into our territory.
Things got complicated when Russians joined the war...You know some Russian Jets removed their country flag from their Jets.
So, you have a Fighter jet closing into your airspace, your rules of engagement is to bring down Syrian jets that trespasses into your airspace... you can't identify the incoming jets nationality....It can be Syrian or Russian...what to do ?
To remind you, months ago a Russian reconnaissance aircraft breached our space in the Black Sea cost....we didn't shoot it down, just send two F-16s to intercept and escorted it out of our airspace.
And i don't understand you did we escalated things or Russians escalated by violating our airspace for 3 times despite protests and warnings ?
What would you suggest, to let Russians violate our airspace once a week, and fill complaint about it, every time ?
There are still better ways. You could simply fire warning shots, lock on targets continuously to make them notice you. How many times do you see a country shooting down a jet for violating their airspace for 10 seconds? You see, if Turkey was not actively sending armed men and weapons to Syria, it would still be justifiable, but this, well at least I can't personally accept that.
To make it clear, it's not because of nationality of downed jet. Even if it was an American jet, I would still say it was not appropriate. Even if my own country did this, I mean shooting down a plane violating our airspace for 10 seconds (a plane that we all know doesn't have hostile intentions and is conducting air raids near border just on the other side), I would still say this same thing.
During invasion of Iraq, U.S jets did violate our airspace few times. During 90s, Turkish jets violated our airspace dozens of times.
Now Syrian airspace seems to be a no-go for Turkish jets, as Russia is desperately waiting to find a proper excuse to shoot down your jets and this directly affects Erdogan's ambitions regarding Syria (which is good imo), but still, this act also harmed Turkey's interest directly. It didn't benefit anyone, perhaps except for Russia so it can have an excuse to close Syrian airspace to Turkish jets.