NATO holds emergency meeting after Syria shoots down plane

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced today that it will hold an emergency meeting on June 26 to review the downing of a Turkish fighter jet by the Syrian army.

The announcement came just hours after Türkiye called for a NATO meeting on the issue. Meanwhile, Syria reiterated that this was not an act of aggression, and that Syria was only carrying out its responsibilities for sovereignty and defense.

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said that according to Article 4 of the NATO founding treaty, if a member country perceives its security is threatened, it has the right to request an emergency meeting to consult with other members of the bloc.

F-4 aircraft. (Source: tintuc.xalo.vn)

Along with the request for an emergency NATO meeting, Ankara also issued a strong warning to Syria on the same day about the plane crash. Speaking on TRT television, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: "According to the investigation results, the F-4 aircraft did indeed briefly violate Syrian airspace, but 15 minutes later, while flying in international airspace, 13 nautical miles from Syria, it was shot down."

According to Foreign Minister Davutoglu, the plane did not show any signs of hostility towards Syria and Syria did not give any warning before shooting it down. Mr. Davutoglu said the plane was on a training mission, conducting a radar system test, not on a reconnaissance mission. The Turkish foreign minister also said that Ankara would act with restraint but determination, and would bring the incident to public attention and international law.

A diplomatic source told AFP that Foreign Minister Davutoglu had held talks with his US counterpart and other UN Security Council members, as well as Germany and Iran.

While the Syrian and Turkish navies are searching the Mediterranean Sea for the pilots of this plane, Syria's ally Iran has called for restraint on both sides. Tehran expressed hope that with tact, tolerance and dialogue, the incident will be properly assessed and through a peaceful solution, order and stability in the region will be preserved, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said after talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu.

Relations between Türkiye and Syria, once allies, have deteriorated since protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March 2011.

Türkiye withdrew its diplomatic staff from Damascus earlier this year. Türkiye is hosting more than 30,000 Syrian refugees and earlier this month hosted a major meeting of Syrian opposition activists against President Assad. Tensions have been rising between the two sides, and the F-4 incident has now become a major issue in bilateral relations.

In response from Syria, Al-Watan newspaper on June 24 quoted the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that Syria was only exercising its rights and responsibilities regarding sovereignty and defense; there was no hostility between the two countries and what had just happened was not an act of aggression. The Syrian Foreign Ministry stated that the F-4 was shot down while it was in Syrian airspace and flying over Syrian territorial waters.

In Syria, violence continued to be severe, killing at least 34 people on June 24, including 16 soldiers killed in clashes with armed rebel groups. In addition, 11 soldiers were also captured in the central province of Damascus.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), last week was one of the bloodiest weeks of the 15-month crisis, that the situation in Syria has turned into a real war with hundreds of people killed every day./.

According to (TTXVN)- DT