Turkey’s downing of Russia jet potential game changer: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Manuel Ochsenreiter, the editor-in-chief of Zuerst in Berlin, to discuss Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane near the Turkey-Syria border.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all, give us your thoughts on recent instance of escalation of tensions along the Turkish-Syria border. How do you see this incident transpiring?

Ochsenreiter: Well, we see both. We see that Turkey standing in its politics toward Syria as they have been doing this since 2011. We should not forget that this is not the first time that air jets are downed by the Turkish military. It [has] happened until now with the Syrian army and Syrian army units and Syrian civilians were attacked by Turkish military and as well by terrorists supported by Turkey.

But what we see now is a new escalation; Turkey right now attacked a world power. This changes the game or this might change the game into a horrible situation for the future. We should not forget that Turkey is one of the most important and, at the same time, the most appreciated NATO member. NATO accepts everything Turkey is doing, especially [everything] Erdogan is doing. Erdogan established an almost totalitarian state under his party leadership. NATO is never doing something against this.

So we can see this attack against the Russian air craft, also not just a Turkish attack, but also it is a NATO attack. So this puts the conflict from the regional level to the world level and that makes the whole incident quite risky.  

Press TV: Let’s jump ahead and talk about the situation as to the account that Turkey has been providing that the aircraft was violating its airspace is proven false by Russia as they have already stated they have a proof that the flight was on Syrian soil and in Syrian airspace the entire flight. What happens then?

Ochsenreiter: There is a history [and that is] history of Turkish provocations in Syria war since 2012. This history shows us that Turkey desperately tries to make this conflict wider to involve other powers. This is what they are doing nonstop and all the news coming from Turkey, especially from the Turkish military, are deeply-biased and propaganda news to justify this politics.

So with seeing the evidence right now, I would not wonder if the Russians would be able to prove very soon that they are right and Turkey is wrong. But, any way, this would not have consequences for Turkey because in the past already those provocations by the Turkish side did not have any consequences. Something maybe ironic in this context; if Turkey says the air jets were violating Turkish airspace, this might also have to do with the interpretation from Ankara on what belongs to Turkey and what not. Because we see that Turkey is very openly securing or invading an area in northern Turkey. We can the terrorist gangs in northern Syria. I think, without any problem, they are just Turkish proxies; they get their money from Turkey, they get their arms from Turkey, the Islamic State [Daesh Takfiri terrorists] is openly supported by Turkey. So these are all Turkish proxies which are right now occupying northern Syrian territory. So this might be one of the reasons that Ankara might see that is a violation of Turkish airspace because what the Russians are doing right now is directly attacking and weakening Turkish proxies on Syrian ground. 

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