Obama just came from Turkey. So the timing is interesting. Then Obama comes out in defense of Turkey. Not only that, but he goes further and says that it is Russia’s fault for supporting Assad. Obama is very dug in on the Assad issue. He wants Assad out. He has invested in that by giving U.S. weapons to the “rebels” and by supposedly training them (that was a disaster). Obama has pretended to be at war with ISIS while he has done little but make excuses for them. He wants Assad out and that seems to be his only interest. So along comes Russia and they make Obama look silly. They make more progress against ISIS in a few weeks than Obama has done over a much longer period.
Obama’s m.o. is “reward your friends and punish your enemies.” He also routinely gains victories by sneaky and dishonest means. So here he can convince Turkey (also supporting the Syrian rebels) to claim Russia was violating their airspace and give them cover to be offensive against Russia while claiming to be defensive. If it escalates, it would coerce the rest of NATO into entering the conflict. Some scheme.
All that happened on the same day Obama chooses to step up support of Ukraine. Obama is out to get Putin, or so it looks obvious to me.
I would argue that the leaders of Turkey are like the rest of the world’s leaders and sit there while Obama babbles but pay absolutely no attention to him