Two different wars

NATO urges Turkey and Russia to sort things out on their own

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, after an emergency meeting of the North Atlantic Council convened at the initiative of Turkey, called on Ankara and Moscow to resolve the conflict over the downed plane through diplomacy and refrain from escalation.

Neither Turkey nor other NATO members are considering the possibility of any reciprocal steps within the framework of the alliance. Neither Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides for emergency consultations with a participating country that is under threat, nor even Article 5 on collective defense on the principle of "one for all - all for one" are involved. NATO, as an alliance, also does not assume direct contacts with Russia on this matter, relying entirely on the diplomacy of its ally.

“We will continue to closely monitor the developments on the southeastern borders of NATO, I look forward to new contacts between Ankara and Moscow, I call for calm,” Stoltenberg said.

NATO members generally accepted the Turkish version of events, which, according to the Secretary General, is consistent with information received from several other NATO countries. That is, the plane was shot down in Turkish airspace and after proper warnings.

“I have long expressed concern about the possible consequences of the military actions of the Russian Federation near the borders of NATO,” Stoltenberg recalled.

He once again confirmed that all NATO countries are in solidarity with Turkey as a member of the alliance and support its territorial integrity.

Recognizing the exceptional gravity of the incident, NATO calls for restraint from both Ankara and Moscow. The Secretary General spoke about improving the mechanisms that would make it possible to avoid such incidents in the future. He uttered the words "transparency, predictability and risk reduction" several times.

NATO is placing the current incident in the general context of what they call "new security conditions along NATO's borders." On the one hand, this is the aggravation of relations with Russia because of Ukraine, militant rhetoric and demonstration of Russian military power. On the other hand, it is the strengthening of the global terrorist threat and radical Islamist anti-Western forces.

Question: Can NATO countries work together with Russia in Syria? While this is problematic, Stoltenberg believes. “Our common enemy should be ISIS ( this terrorist organization is banned in Russia. - Ed. ). And we welcome any efforts aimed at combating it, we are in favor of expanding these efforts,” the NATO Secretary General noted. - It is important that all of us, including Russia, be united by one goal - to defeat ISIS. But we see that so far the majority of Russian air strikes in Syria have been on targets in those parts of Syria where there is no ISIS.”

So far, Russia and the West are waging two different wars in Syria.