Morning Star.png Russia Warns Turkey it Will Fight off Any New Attack James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 26 November 2015 Russia vowed yesterday to counter Turkish attacks on its forces in Syria, calling Tuesday's downing of an Su-24 jet a "pre-planned provocation." Foreign Minster Sergey Lavrov said: "We have serious doubts that this act was unintentional." Earlier, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called NATO-member Turkey's actions a "de facto protection of Islamic State" and a "dangerous escalation of [tensions] between Russia and NATO." Russian general staff officer General Sergey Rudskoy said that, rather than the Russian plane straying into Turkish airspace, the Turkish jet had violated Syrian territory. The Russian missile cruiser Moskva was cruising off the north Syrian coast yesterday as Moscow announced it would deploy its latest S-400 surface-to-air missile system at the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia. On Tuesday evening, Gen Rudskoy said that Russian air defence capabilities would be boosted and all strike missions would have a fighter escort. He warned: "Every target posing a potential threat will be destroyed." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed yesterday that Ankara does not wish to escalate tensions with Russia over the plane's downing. At a NATO meeting on Tuesday, alliance secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said: "We stand in solidarity with . and support the territorial integrity of our NATO ally Turkey." And US State Department spokesman Mark Toner apparently sought to justify the murder of Russian pilot Major Sergei Rumyantsev by Turkish-backed Turkmen militas. "If these 'Turkomen' were actually being attacked by Russian strikes, they have every right to defend themselves," he claimed. The stand-off with Turkey complicates the Russian mission in Syria, which is supplied via the Turkish Bosphorous straits connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Russia has the capability to fly in supplies through the airspace of its ally Iran and neighbouring Iraq, but such flights would require fighter escorts and may face obstruction from the US. From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-c8df-Russia-warns-Turkey-it-will-fight- off-any-new-attack#.VlaCUnYrK00 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
