Gul Admits: Downed Jet May Have Violated Syrian Space

Local Editor

Turkey's President, Abdullah Gul, admitted Saturday that the Turkish fighter jet shot down by Syria's air defense forces on Friday may have violated Syrian airspace.
 
Gul, however, claimed that "it was routine for warplanes flying at high speed to cross borders for short distances."
"The Turkish government could not ignore the fact that Syria had shot down a Turkish aircraft," he added and pointed out that "it is not possible to cover over a thing like this, whatever is necessary will be done.
According to the Turkish state news agency, Anatolia, the Head of the State claimed that "these are not ill-intentioned things but happen beyond control due to the jets' speed."

"An investigation would look at whether the plane had been shot down in Turkish airspace, and also revealed that Ankara had been in contact with Damascus despite both countries declaring each other's diplomats unwelcome earlier this year," he added.
Gul further mentioned that "despite we withdrew our envoy from Syria for security reasons, this does not mean that we have no contacts."

Few hours earlier, Syrian military spokesman issued the following statement:
 
"At 11:40 AM on 22/6/2012, an unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters, so the Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery, hitting it directly as it was 1 kilometer away from land."
"This caused it to crash into Syrian territorial waters west of Om al-Tuyour village in Lattakia province, 10 kilometers from the beach," the spokesman said.

He added that "the target turned out to be a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian airspace and was dealt with according to laws observed in such cases."
The spokesman also said that the two countries' naval forces' commands have established contact, and Syrian naval ships along with the Turkish side are searching for the two missing pilots.

The Turkish military said it lost radio contact with the F-4 Phantom at 11:58 (08:58 GMT) on Friday while it was flying over Hatay province, about 90 minutes after it took off from Erhac airbase in the province of Malatya, to the north-west.


Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org