NATO said the personal orders of Erdogan to shoot down a Russian su-24 in 2015, but in the Kremlin don’t believe it
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally gave the order in 2015, to strike on the Russian su-24 aircraft, which carried out a combat mission in Syria. Such conclusion is made in the Stockholm organization Nordic Research Monitoring Network, which were documents with private briefings to NATO, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”.
In the Turkish expert community confirmed that Ankara was trying to hide who was behind the order to strike. According to the records of the briefings in Brussels, the Turkish President himself ordered to attack the bomber. “Every military element approaching Turkey from the Syrian border and representing a security risk will be assessed as a military threat and treated as a military target”, – cited the words of Erdogan in the report of the legal adviser of the Turkish General staff of Erkan Agina. According to his statement, the Turkish side is at least 10 times warned the Russians of the emergency channels of communication about the violation of Turkish airspace before the strike.
The report stated that Turkish authorities informed Russian colleagues about their “red lines” in the Syrian armed conflict. “Russian authorities had been duly notified about our rules of engagement at all levels and repeatedly informed that our rules of engagement require the pilots of the force response to the invasion of Turkish airspace for any unidentified aircraft from Syria,” reads the briefing notes. In 2015, the Russian side has been asked to inform their crews that they should not approach closer than 5 miles to the Turkish border.
After Turkey attempted coup in 2016, major Agina was accused of helping the rebels in force, according to Turkish authorities, on behalf of gülen. Counsel was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was reported that the Turkish air force pilots who attacked the Russian su-24, were taken into custody. After this mention of them. According to unofficial information, the attack involved a Turkish pilot who was not placed under arrest, and continued to serve in the Turkish armed forces under heavy guard.
Former Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu in 2017, in writing, assured a parliamentary Commission of inquiry into the attempted coup 2016, which is ordered to find out whether they had appeared in “airplane” the crisis of the pilots connection with any of the banned Turkish organisation. In the course of Davutoglu’s contacts with the Turkish General staff of such a connection could not be established.
As stated by the Turkish political scientist, candidate of political Sciences Kerim has, the Kremlin already knew that the order was given to Erdogan himself, repeating that in the case of repeated violations of its airspace, the answer will be the same. Davutoglu also said that the order he gave. In any case, in 2015, the Prime Minister personally could not make decisions of this kind, but to achieve peace with Russia, Erdogan was necessary to send Davutoglu to resign, writes NEZAVISIMAYA Gazeta.
According to the analyst, the Russian leadership may use the data on the role of Erdogan in crisis around the su-24. “Moscow has more information about what happened in the moment of hitting the plane, and at the time of the attempted coup of 2016, and that concerns the relationship between the Turkish political elite with the IG* and other radical groups in Syria, and that applies to illegal oil trade, and the corruption scandal of 2013 in Turkey,” – said Hass.
The analyst reminds about the case of a detainee in U.S. zolotokolosa Reza Zarrab, which was involved top Turkish elite: all of this increases the dependence of Ankara from Russia. As for Davutoglu, according to the expert, the Turkish leader can undermine his attempts to create his own party, taking advantage of “airplane” crisis and officially shifting responsibility for the downed plane on its rival.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin this information is not trusted. “This information – she is quite impersonal, it is unclear where it came from, it is not clear how you can consider this information reliable. We orientirueshsya statements, including the public, the Turkish side about what other people gave the command to destroy the Russian aircraft,” – said Peskov, quoted by “Interfax”.
Initially, Turkey was blamed for the incident on the Russian leadership, which greatly complicated bilateral relations. Seven months later, Erdogan was forced to apologize to President Vladimir Putin, as well as the family of the pilot Oleg Peshkov, who was killed by militants during ejection. The Turkish leader has distanced himself from the decision to attack su-24, saying that the incident is a terrorist organization of Fethullah gülen and its supporting forces.
Immediately after the incident, responsibility for the pilot’s death took on a member of the far-right organization “Grey wolves” Alparslan çelik, but he later retracted his words. In April 2016, the Turkish police arrested Celik for the illegal carrying and possession of weapons. In may 2017, the court of Izmir Celik was sentenced to five years in prison. The case of the involvement of the defendant to the death of the Russian pilot had not been considered.
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*Islamic state (ISIS, ISIL, DAISH) is a terrorist group banned in Russia.
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