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Friday March 29, 2024

Impending doom?

The fight against Isis was never going to be a simple one. The two major players, Russia and Nato, have taken different positions on conducting the fight. Russia has aligned itself with the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad while Nato countries have been advocating a minus-Assad solution to the crisis.

By our correspondents
November 26, 2015
The fight against Isis was never going to be a simple one. The two major players, Russia and Nato, have taken different positions on conducting the fight. Russia has aligned itself with the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad while Nato countries have been advocating a minus-Assad solution to the crisis. Hope of a resolution between the two parties had increased after the Paris attacks as Nato seemed to be backing down on its demand that Assad be removed from power. However, on Wednesday, after Turkish F-16s downed a Russian fighter jet that was allegedly flying inside Turkish territory, the crisis in the Middle East has taken a stark turn for the worse. One Russian pilot was killed as was a Russian marine in the rescue operation. While early fears of war between Turkey and Russia have been allayed, the repercussions of the downing of the Russian jet by a Nato country are going to be serious. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Turkish actions akin to a ‘stab in the back’ and called the Turkish government an ‘ally of terrorists’. Turkish President Recep Erdogan, meanwhile, has maintained his ground, insisting that no Isis terrorists were present in the area where the Russia jets were flying.
Aerial bombings in Syria have been the norm this past year; and Nato claims that its fighter planes have been targeting Isis groups. Russian planes entered the picture a couple of months ago to much international furore over its sympathies for the Syrian president. Since then, Russia has had a number of run-ins with the Turkish government over Russian jets crossing into the latter’s territory. Apparently Russian jets have attacked Turkey-backed Turkmen rebels in Syria as well. Many international commentators have observed that such an incident was long in the making as Russia jets continued to violate the territorial sovereignty of Turkey. Turkish officials have insisted that the pilots of the downed jet had been given sufficient warning to get out of its territory before its ‘emergency’ measure of calling in its F-16s. What is unclear is whether the fighter jet ever posed a significant threat to Turkey. Russia has suspended military cooperation with Turkey and Putin has warned of further economic consequences for Turkey, which has a number of key economic cooperation agreements with Russia. Nato, in an emergency meeting, has asked the two countries to de-escalate tensions before they get out of hand. As things stand, neither Turkey nor Russia has backed down from verbal attacks on each other. If the two countries do not find common ground, the situation could spiral the world back into the days of the cold war. With the US and French presidents set to meet Putin next week, if this matter remains unresolved it could greatly compromise the global consensus on fighting the Isis threat.