Asia Times Online : : Syria : Waiting for someone named Obama
►http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NJ16Ag01.html
Even as German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who was on a visit to China, diverted himself to Istanbul in a mission on Saturday aimed at tamping down Turkish-Syrian tensions, Der Spiegel calmly reported that the information about the “non-civilian cargo”, which led to the interception of a Syrian aircraft by the Turkish Air Force the previous Wednesday night, was actually passed on to Ankara by US intelligence.
Furthermore, Der Spiegel disclosed authoritatively, “Ankara only forced the plane to land after close contact with its Western allies.”
The question naturally arises: Was it an incident that had been choreographed by Washington with a view to change the dynamics of the Syrian situation? Stranger ways have been found to kick-start wars in history. Or did the United States have another motive?
The pattern of the rhetoric may give some clues. Russia, of course, vehemently and promptly denied that it had violated international law. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in fact, gave a detailed explanation as if he were pleading with the Turks not to be taken in by whatever they might have heard:
In the wake of all sorts of insinuations spread in connection with the Syrian jet’s landing, I’d like to stress we don’t have secrets in this respect. We’ve cleared out the situation and the truth is that, quite naturally, the jet was not carrying any weapons and certainly couldn’t be carrying them.
The cargo was supplied by a legal Russian supplier in a legitimate way to a legal customer. It’s electric engineering equipment for a radar station, a dual-purpose equipment that isn’t forbidden by any international conventions. Airway bills for it were filled out in strict compliance with international requirements. Transportation of these cargoes by civil-aviation jets is normal practice, and this is confirmed by the fact the Turkish authorities offered the crew either to change the route or to land in Ankara before it entered Turkey’s airspace.The captain decided to land because he knew the crew wasn’t doing anything illegal.
Interestingly, the Turkish side has pointedly refused to take issue with Moscow’s narrative. The Turkish statement was actually evasive and loquacious - to the effect that Ankara had acted on the basis of “information that the plane was carrying cargo of a nature that could not possibly be in compliance with the rules of civil aviation”.