Nato said on yesterday it will discuss Turkey’s accusation that Syria shot down one of its warplanes in international airspace, as Damascus suffered heavy losses and violence scaled new heights.
Syria’s surging bloodshed saw at least 63 people killed yesterday, nearly half of them troops who died in clashes with rebels, activists said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned Ankara’s southern neighbour not to challenge Turkey’s military, as Britain – another member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – offered support for “robust” international action.
“According to our conclusions, our plane was shot down in international airspace, 13 nautical miles from Syria,” Mr Davutoglu told Turkey’s TRT television.
“The Syrians knew full well that it was a Turkish military plane and the nature of its mission,” he said. “Nobody should dare put Turkey’s (military) capabilities to the test.”
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “The (President Bashar al-) Assad regime should not make the mistake of believing that it can act with impunity. It will be held to account for its behaviour.”
Nato said it will meet tomorrow to discuss the issue following a request by Turkey.
“Under Article 4, any ally can request consultations whenever, in the opinion of any of them, their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened,” a Nato spokesman said.
Damascus said it downed the F-4 Phantom on Friday after it violated Syrian airspace.
Turkey had on Saturday acknowledged the plane may have done so, in comments seen as a bid to cool tensions between the former allies, but it now appears to have taken a harder stance.
“Syria was merely exercising its right and sovereign duty and defence,” Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi was quoted as saying yesterday in Al-Watan, a pro-government daily.
“There is no enmity between Syria and Turkey, but political tension (exists) between the two countries.
“What happened was an accident and not an assault as some like to say, because the plane was shot while it was in Syrian airspace and flew over Syrian territorial waters,” Mr Makdissi said.
CNN-Turk television reported that search and rescue teams have located the wreckage of the jet at a depth of 1,300 metres in the sea, but did not give its precise location or refer to the fate of the two missing pilots.
Ankara said it could not confirm the report.
Turkey-Syria relations have already been strained by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s outspoken condemnation of the Assad regime’s bloody crackdown, which rights activists claim has killed more than 15,000 people since March 2011.
Meanwhile at least 63 people were killed yesterday in Syria, nearly half of them regime troops who died in clashes with rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
At least 16 soldiers were killed in the northern province of Aleppo, while the rest died in neighbouring Idlib province and in the provinces of Damascus and Deir Ezzor in the east, the Britain-based watchdog said.
The fighting took place in the town of Dara Aza and at military checkpoints near the town of Al-Atarib and the village of Kafr Halab, it said.