Posted on 02/27/2020 8:54:47 PM PST by NorseViking
A long-developing proxy clash in Syria between Russia and Turkey is “very much moving into crisis mode,” a senior American diplomat said amid reports that Turkish troops were attacked in an airstrike.
“Oh my gosh,” Kay Bailey Hutchison, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, exclaimed Thursday when she learned from journalists that more than 20 Turkish service members reportedly have been killed. “Let me say this because I just learned this: Of course, everything is on the table. This is a new development. This is a big development.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called an emergency meeting of his national security team late Thursday as local media reported that Russia targeted a Turkish command post in Idlib. Turkish officials blamed the strike on Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, who has survived the civil war by virtue of Russian and Iranian military support for his regime.
"Turkey early Friday carried out missile attacks on targets in Syria's central Hama, northwestern towns of Nubl and Zahraa, as well as in regime and Russian bastion, Latakia, in response to the Assad regime airstrike that killed 22 Turkish soldiers," the Daily Sabah, a Turkish outlet, reported after the meeting.
Hutchison was troubled about the prospect of a crisis even before learning of that report because Russia is trying to help Syrian dictator Bashar Assad reconquer the last major rebel stronghold in Syria while Turkey backs opposition groups in the area in part due to fear that millions of Syrian civilians will flee to Europe if Assad wins the battle for Idlib.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
I was there in the 80s. I would whole heartedly agree with that.
Correct Brady,
Turkey recently purchased an anti aircraft system from Russia which ticked off NATO as it would give Russia technicians access to NATO’s defense plans.
Honestly the Russian US mutual dislike is driven by the intel/ foreign policy people. Media in both countries also drive the friction. Russia is not our natural enemy. The USSR was, but Russia is not. Holdovers from the cold war drive the pissing match on both sides. As these cold war warriors die off so will the animosity.
Russian adventurism is driven by their “short man complex” having been a superpower and now being essentially Texas. A bit of Slav ego stroking and that goes away.
>NATO ally Turkey
Gee, I still remember way back to... last year... when Turkey was the devil incarnate sent in by Trump to “massacre the Kurds”. Now I see their media status has returned to “NATO ally”.
Most of America’s enemies are trying to create crises to help defeat Trump, especially the socialists.
Not our monkeys, not our circus
Assad wants the help of the Russians. He does not want the help of the Turks.
So if the Turks are on Syrian turf, they can expect some push back.
Why is our diplomatic corps so slow to understand this?
NATO countries are atheistic and being overrun by muzzie infiltrators. Russia is a Christian nation.
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