News / Interviews

Turkey to sabotage West- Russia rapprochement over Syria: Analyst

Wednesday, 25 November 2015 6:09 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 25 November 2015 9:03 AM ]

An image grab made from a video shows a burning Russian fighter jet coming down after being shot down near the Turkish-Syrian border, in Hatay on November 24, 2015. (AFP photo)

Press TV has conducted an interview with James Jatras, former US Senate foreign policy analyst in Washington DC, and Mehmet Solmaz, news editor of Daily Sabah in Istanbul, about Turkey downing a Russian fighter jet conducting airstrikes against terrorists in Syria at the Turkey-Syria border.

Jatras states Turkey is seeking “to throw a monkey wrench” into the growing rapprochement between the West and Russia to fight the Daesh terrorists in Syria, adding, the “downing of the Russian jet was a ploy to do that.”

“After the attacks in Paris [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan who is a big supporter of Daesh and al-Nusra and the other terror forces trying to overthrow the Syrian government was very concerned that more and more Western opinion is swinging in the direction of cooperating with Russia in a joint anti-terrorist campaign and that was something that was very upsetting to Mr. Erdogan,” he says.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the analyst maintains that the West needs to make up its mind whether it is serious about fighting the Daesh terrorist group or not.

“As long as we have this diktat coming from Western powers saying that we get to the side who runs the government of Syria and in effect trying to vindicate the policy of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries that essentially want to impose a sectarian Sunni state in Syria and are willing to do anything they need to do in order to achieve that end, it is hard to see how we can come up with a true, united front against what supposedly we all agree on which is that Daesh is a threat to the entire civilized world, “ he argues.

Jatras further notes the United States does not want to see “genuine cooperation” between any of its allies in NATO with the Russians.

The analyst goes on to say that “If the French and the Germans have any regard for their own interest and are not simply taking their marching orders from Washington, I hope we will have some pushback in NATO against this very dangerous provocation from the Turkish side.”

Solmaz, for his part, believes despite the fact that Turkey’s air space has been “violated,” Ankara’s ties with Moscow will not worsen over the downing of the Russian jet.

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