Turkey had a whole range of reasons why it was looking for a reason for a tough response to Russia, according to experts interviewed by The New York Times

Turkish F-16 fighter jets (Photo: AP)

The level of dissatisfaction of the Turkish authorities with the actions of Russia reached a critical point at the time of the incident, as a result of which a Russian plane was shot down, writes The New York Times (NYT), which collected a wide range of opinions of analysts and experts.

First, Turkey was forced to temper its ambitions to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. As a result of Russian intervention, Ankara’s task has narrowed to simply maintaining a seat at the negotiating table in order to somehow defend its interests in the future Syria, said Soner Jagaptay, an analyst specializing in Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He explained that to accomplish even this minimal task, Ankara needs rebels controlled by it in Syria.

As a result, Jagaptay told the NYT, Turkey has had to take an aggressive stance in the Syrian conflict to prevent its protégés from losing territories they control in the north of the country. He added that in this situation, Russian bombing of pro-Turkish rebels alarmed Ankara.

Cagaptay noted that the Russian bombing has created domestic political problems for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as in recent days the Turkish press has been actively covering the hardships faced by Syrian Turkmen, who are ethnically very close to the Turks. Therefore, the analyst said, the government felt obliged to do something to help its kindred people.

Russian aircraft at an air base in Syria Photo gallery

Strikes against Turkmen positions were to be the main topic of negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, writes NYT. The meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, November 25, but was canceled after the Turks shot down a Russian plane. Speaking on the evening of Tuesday, November 24, Erdogan said: “We strongly condemn attacks on the areas where the Bairbujak Turkmen live, we have relatives there, our relatives.”

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday that no one has the right to justify attacks on Turkmens in Syria by the fight against the Islamic State (a terrorist organization banned in Russia). The NYT emphasized that support for the Syrian Turkmens has another important political dimension in Turkey, since Erdogan’s party actively exploited the slogans of pan-Turkism and Sunni unity in recent elections.

Such tactics helped Islamists from the ruling Justice and Development Party defeat their rivals from the pro-Kurdish and secular parties in the recent parliamentary elections, the newspaper notes, and now Erdogan has a chance to change the country’s Constitution and turn Turkey from a parliamentary republic into a presidential one.

Another reason NYT cites is Syria's territorial claims to the Turkish province of Hatay, near whose borders a Russian plane was shot down. This region off the Mediterranean coast is inhabited by ethnic Turks and Arabs who practice both Islam and Christianity.

Following the results of the First World War, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Hatay entered French-mandated Syria. In 1938, local Turks declared the independence of the province, and a year later became part of Turkey. Syria disputes the legal validity of this territorial change, and according to Altay Atli, an international relations specialist at Bosphorus University in Istanbul, Syrian maps show Hatay as Syrian territory.

Additionally, after Hatay's secession, many ethnic Turks remained on the other side of the border in Syria, leading to family separation for decades. At the beginning of the 21st century, tensions on this issue began to subside, writes the NYT, but escalated again in recent years, when Turkey began to call for the overthrow of Assad.

Former American ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey, who now works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, admitted that Russia may have specifically encouraged violations of Turkish airspace over this territory by its aircraft in order to support Syrian claims to Hatay.

Turkish Deputy Defense Minister Ismail Demir told NYT about the downing of the Russian plane: “I personally expected something like this because there have been many similar incidents in recent months.” “Our rules of engagement are very clear and any sovereign nation has the right to defend its borders,” he added.

Stones were thrown at the Turkish embassy in Moscow Photo gallery

Russia has been conducting an air campaign in Syria since late September at the request of the government of Bashar al-Assad. On November 24, during a combat mission in northern Syria near the border with Turkey, Turkish fighters shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber. Its pilot, as well as a Marine from the rescue team, died. The navigator managed to survive and return to base.

Türkiye said the Russian plane violated its airspace. Moscow claims that the Su-24 was attacked 1 km from the Turkish border over Syrian territory.

Experts list the reasons for the Turkish strike on the Russian plane