The U.N. Envoy to Syria said today that it is time to "raise the level of pressure" on Syria as well as the opposition forces in that country as news broke of the shooting down of a Turkish Fighter by the Syrian Government.
Turkish officials have annnounced that they have launched a search and rescue mission at sea and have located the downed aircraft and rescued the two pilots of the fighter. The downing of the aircraft has prompted the Turkish government to call an emergency summit of government,military and intelligence officials. The aircraft was shot down in Syrian territorial waters.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogen stated that Syria has apologised for the shooting down of the U.S. made F-4 Phantom.
It is highly unlikely that the incident will escalate anywhere near conflict between the two nations. Turkey, even though it is assisting with the arming of the Syrian rebels, isn’t eager for any overt armed conflict with its neighbor. Meanwhile Syria has its hands full with its war against its own people.
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Turkey is still dealing with Iraq’s autonomous state of Kurdistan, who often stage attacks across the border into Turkey against the military there. Turkey launches reprisals to the attacks with aerial bombing campaigns pounding rebel camps in that country. Just this week, Turkey launched an aerial attack across the border after an cross-border attack by rebels on a Turkish military base that took the lives of two dozen rebels and eight Turkish soldiers.
The war in Syria is bound to escalate further at some point, as Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia continue to arm Syrian rebels with better and better weaponry to fight the government forces.