Russia Says Syrian Plane Impounded by Turkey Had Radar Gear, Not Arms - New York Times [getdailynow.blogspot.com]
The House 2SCARY! (Even scared Elijah a bit)
Cem Oksuz/Anadolu Agency/European Pressphoto Agency
A Syrian passenger plane on Wednesday after Turkish warplanes forced it to land at an airport in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. More Photos »
MOSCOW â€" Amid rising tension with Turkey over the conflict in Syria, Russia pressed Ankara on Friday for an account of what Turkish officials had discovered on board a commercial jetliner that was forced to land in Turkey.
Turkish warplanes forced the plane to land on Wednesday on suspicion of transporting war matériel while en route from Moscow to Damascus with 35 passengers, including a number of Russians. Syria accused the Turks of assaulting the crew, denied that any illegal cargo had been aboard and demanded the return of whatever had been seized.
Turkey’s prime minister said on Thursday that Russian munitions intended for Syria’s government had been impounded. But by Friday morning, Russian reports said that Moscow had received no details.
“The Russian side has still not received information about the cargo removed by the Turkish side, the reasons, details and conditions of the confiscation,†a Foreign Ministry official told the Interfax news agency.
“We continue to insist on receiving this data and we hope the information will be presented in the near future,†the official said.
The developments aggravated the combustible atmosphere enveloping the conflict in Syria, where a 19-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad has turned into a civil war that threatens to destabilize the Middle East. Turkey is a major backer of the insurgents trying to topple Mr. Assad and has hinted it may take military action against his forces because of the conflict, which has sent more than 100,000 Syrian refugees into Turkey. Russia is the major arms supplier to Mr. Assad’s government.
Fighting between Syrian insurgents and Mr. Assad’s forces convulsed northern Syria near the Turkish border, with unconfirmed reports that rebels had seized control of a strategic highway into the embattled city of Aleppo that the Syrian Army used to resupply its troops.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based antigovernment group with a network of contacts inside Syria, calculated that at least 87 soldiers were killed in fighting around the country on Thursday. If true, this would be the military’s heaviest one-day casualty toll since the conflict began. It was impossible to verify the claim.
The assertion that the impounded Syrian jetliner carried Russian military cargo was made by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who declined to say how the Turks had come to suspect that the plane was carrying matériel or what precisely had been found. But he said the cargo violated international rules that prohibit passenger aircraft from carrying munitions.
“From Russia, an institution equivalent to our Machinery and Chemical Industry has sent military tools, equipment and ammunition to the Syrian Defense Ministry,†Mr. Erdogan was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency. He was drawing a comparison to Turkey’s Machinery and Chemical Industry Institution, a leading provider of defense equipment to the Turkish military.
“Upon the intelligence received, research there was conducted, and it was unfortunately seen that there was such equipment inside,†Mr. Erdogan said, referring to the search of the plane.
Mr. Erdogan also said a planned visit to Turkey by Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had been postponed, but that the delay had no connection with the forced grounding of the plane.
The prime minister spoke after Moscow expressed dismay at Turkey’s actions. A statement from Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that the forced landing had “threatened the life and safety†of Russian citizens aboard and that Russia “continues to insist on an explanation of the reasons for these actions by the Turkish authorities.â€
Vyacheslav Davidenko, a spokesman for Rosoboronexport, the Russian company that has a monopoly on legal exports of finished weapons, denied any connection with what the Turks claimed to have found. “We don’t know what cargo was on that plane, but the cargo, whatever it was, does not belong to Rosoboronexport,†Mr. Davidenko said in a telephone interview.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry statement that described a harrowing ordeal for the passengers and crew of the Airbus A320 jetliner.
The ministry’s statement contended that the Turks had forced the plane to sit unattended on the tarmac at the airport in Ankara, the capital, for hours, leaving the occupants to wonder why. Later, after passengers had been escorted into a waiting lounge, “Turkish security authorities subjected the plane to search and assaulted the plane crew,†the ministry said. The plane and passengers were allowed to leave early Thursday.
“The plane was carrying no weapons or prohibited goods in accordance with the unblemished international reputation of the Syrian Arab Airlines,†the statement said. It called upon Turkey “to return the rest of the plane’s contents intact.â€
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