Syrian plane had illegal cargo, says Turkey's Davutoglu

Turkey ups the ante.  Again.  BBC News.  Excerpts:

Turkey has said a Syria-bound passenger plane which it forced to land in Ankara was carrying "illegal cargo".


The Syrian Air plane was intercepted by Turkey and searched over suspicions it was carrying military equipment.

But officials in Russia and Syria strongly denied the allegations and accused the Turkish authorities of endangering passengers and crew.

Tension between Turkey and Syria has been high since five Turkish civilians were killed last week by mortar bombs.

In response, Turkey fired into Syria for the first time since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last year.

'Air piracy'

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said "objectionable" cargo had been confiscated from the plane.

"There is illegal cargo on the plane that should have been reported," he told the Anatolia news agency.

He did not specify whether any weapons had been found, but unconfirmed reports in Turkish media said the seized items included boxes of military communication equipment.


The foreign minister said Turkey, which imposed an arms embargo on Syria last year, would continue to investigate Syrian passenger planes flying over its air space.

Both Syria and Russia reacted angrily to the plane's enforced diversion.

Syrian Transport Minister Mahmoud Saeed accused Turkey of carrying out "air piracy" and breaking civil aviation agreements, according to Lebanon's al-Manar TV.

Gaida Abdul Latif, boss of Syrian Air, accused Turkey of endangering her passengers and crew.

"Turkish military aircraft forced the plane to land without giving prior warning to the pilot. The military aircraft were so close that there could have been an accident," she said.

'Spare parts'

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Turkish officials had failed to inform the embassy that 17 Russian citizens were on board the plane.

"We are concerned that, in this emergency situation, the lives and safety of the passengers, including 17 Russian nationals, were put at risk," he said.
Russia's state arms supplier Rosoboronexport said in a statement it had no information about the plane's cargo, and denied it had any connection with the flight or anything on board.

Earlier, Mr Davutoglu had said Ankara was determined to stop any transfer of weapons to Syria through its airspace.

He said Ankara had received information that the Damascus-bound plane could be carrying "non-civilian cargo".

The Airbus A320 airliner had about 30 passengers on board, far fewer than its 180 passenger capacity.

The aircraft was escorted by two Turkish fighters to the capital's Esenboga airport for security checks.

Turkey and Syria on the brink of all-out war

Tick..  Tick..  Tick..  The Telegraph, via The Extinction Protocol:

October 11, 2012 – TURKEY - If anyone believed that Syria’s bloodshed would stay inside the country’s borders, the events of the last week should have put them right. I’m in southern Turkey, near the frontier with Syria, and this area feels like the new front line of the battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Convoys of Turkish army vehicles ply the roads down to the border and, quietly, civilians are trickling away to safer areas. The reason is simple: cross-border artillery and mortar bombardments have become daily events. Last Friday, I went to the scene of the bloodiest incident so far, when a Syrian mortar bomb landed outside a family home in the Turkish town of Akçakale. By malign chance, a mother, her six daughters and a female relative happened to be outside, making dinner under an olive tree, when the weapon exploded beside them. They were, quite simply, cut to pieces. When I arrived, a severed human finger, covered in flies, was still lying on the ground. Three of the girls survived with critical injuries; the mother, three daughters and the visiting relative were all killed. Since then, hardly a day has passed without the Syrian army firing shells or bombs into Turkey, or vice versa. If another family dies in similar circumstances, the Turkish government will come under immense popular pressure to respond with full force. If the Akçakale killings were to be repeated, I would not be surprised if Turkey retaliated with a strike by troops as well as artillery, possibly accompanied with air power. The country’s parliament has authorised the government to do exactly that if necessary. In other words, Turkey and Syria are close to war. The two countries have been waging a covert, undeclared war since the onset of the uprising against Assad, with Turkey supplying the Syrian rebels and Damascus hitting back by fuelling the Kurdish insurgency inside its neighbor. But we could be close to the moment when this shadow war becomes a formal, cross-border conflict. The lesson is clear: a civil war in volatile region is like a brushfire. Leave it alone, and it will spread. –Telegraph


While the media has chosen to ignore this story, the bad blood between Turkey and Syria continues to grow.  Any bets on which country will stick their ass into the action next?