nbc news Prior to the incident, Moscow ignored calls by Ankara to put an "immediate end" to its airstrikes on Turkmen rebel brigades operating along the border.
The tension culminated in Turkey's decision to down the Su-24 fighter jet, which had been bombing
units of Liwa Jabal al-Turkman — an ethnic Turkish group backed by Turkey — at the time it was downed.
Russia insisted the plane had been bombing "terrorists" in the area.
Burned by the incident, Russia deployed an advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system to the coastal province of Latakia and orderedthat all Russian Su-24s be equipped with
air-to-air missiles. Russian warplanes
have continued pounding Turkmen rebels — the Turkish aid convoys
along the border that supply them — with airstrikes.
These provocative moves are evidently meant as a message to deter Turkish jets from shooting down Russian planes in the future. But Russia has
financial and geopolitical interests in keeping its retaliation asymmetrical — specifically, by bombing Turkish-backed rebel groups in Syria while refraining from engaging with Turkey in a military confrontation directly.
View gallery
putin erdogan
(Osman Orsal/Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish then-Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
Asymmetrical or not, Turkey could feasibly perceive Russia's military buildup along the Turkish-Syrian border as a serious threat and
invoke its most valuable trump card: the Turkish Straits.
The straits, which consist of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the
Bosporus, are a series of waterways in Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea
— and the Mediterranean — to the Black Sea.
Turkey, which has full control over the Dardanelles and the Bosporus
under the 1936 Montreux Convention, acts as the straits' custodian and regulates the passage of naval ships belonging to Black Sea states.
Russia currently depends on the unrestricted access to the straits afforded it under the Montreux Convention. Through the straits, it sends supplies to Syria from its
Novorossiysk naval base in the Black Sea
to Russian ports in Tartus and Latakia.
View gallery
turkey straits
(Google Maps)
Historically, Russian ships have enjoyed unfettered access to the Mediterranean via the straits. Under Montreux, however, Turkey may legally block Russian military vessels from passing through the straits under two conditions: if it is at war with Russia or if it considers itself to be "threatened with imminent danger of war."
As Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Business Insider on Tuesday,
it remains unlikely that Turkey would go as far as to close the straits — even in these tense times.
"I think this scenario would only kick in a World War II type situation," Stein said in an email. "Turkey will keep the straits open per the convention and its historical practice."
But against the backdrop of Russia's escalating military presence along Turkey's southern border is Ankara's legal authority, under Article 21 of Montreux, to cut off one of Russia's most vital links to Syria if it feels threatened with war.
Turkey has already reportedly signaled that it is willing to take some steps of retaliation with the straits. Leonid Bershidsky, a Bloomberg View columnist,
reported on Tuesday that Turkey is "making Russian cargo ships wait for hours before they're allowed to pass through the Bosporus."
View gallery
turkmen rebels syria
(Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)
That Russia has continued to target Turkmen villages and rebel brigades along the Turkish-Syrian border, despite Turkey's demands that it stop, would theoretically be enough for Turkey to invoke Article 21.
"It was the targeting of these Turkmen groups, villages, and convoys that led to Turkey summoning the Russian ambassador and demanding a halt to the strikes," The Soufan Group
said on Monday. "Less than a week after, Turkey shot down the Russian jet."
Though Russia wants to weaken the Turkmen rebels so that they do not return to central Asia and strike Russia — and so they are less capable of fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces — Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is
equally if not more invested in the continued well-being of the Syrian Turkmen, who are ethnically Turkish.
"Erdogan's determination to create a pan-Turkic sphere of influence is matched by Russia's to target Syrian Turkmen," the group added. "It is difficult to overstate how much this issue resonates with Turkey's
0 comments:
Post a Comment