By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times –
BEIRUT — Turkey hinted that it would ask its NATO allies to consider Syria’s downing of a Turkish jet to be an attack on the entire alliance, as it struggles to craft a response tough enough to satisfy an outraged public at home while trying to avoid war.
On the eve of Tuesday’s NATO meeting called by Turkey to discuss the incident, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said in the Turkish capital that “this action will not go unpunished and will have consequences.”
Turkey is to present its version of events under NATO’s Article 4, which allows for consultations if a member fears threats to its security or territorial integrity.
But the deputy prime minister said Ankara would call on NATO to consider the matter under the more robust terms of Article 5, the collective self-defense arrangement that regards an attack against one member as an attack against all.
And, as the gap widened between each country’s version of how and where the Turkish F4 Phantom jet was shot down off the Syrian coast, Arinc charged that Syrian batteries also opened fire on a Turkish search and rescue plane that was dispatched to find the plane’s two missing pilots.
Analysts said there is little prospect of NATO seriously contemplating military action against Syria when so many of its members—including the United States—have warned against foreign intervention in Syria’s ongoing civil strife.
Arinic also sought to dampen any prospect of Turkish military retaliation.
“We have no intention of going to war with anyone,” he said after a seven-hour Cabinet meeting.
Some diplomats close to the discussions said Turkish authorities are considering several retaliatory moves against Syria, including new economic sanctions. But Turkey’s range of options are limited since it has already imposed sanctions on Syria and expelled Syrian diplomats.
Turkey says its aircraft was shot down Friday in international airspace after its pilots inadvertently wandered into Syrian skies. Syria says the jet was hit well within Syrian airspace off the Mediterranean coast of Latakia province.
Turkish officials, viewing the incident as a clear affront to the nation’s standing as an emerging world power, are seeking to satisfy a domestic audience outraged over what is widely seen as a humiliating and unwarranted attack that led to the apparent loss of two pilots.
Using NATO channels is a way to try to internationalize the response, without real risk of military action that could unleash a wider conflict.
Last year, NATO-led bombardments were decisive in the fall of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi. But NATO’s use of force in Libya had legal sanction in a United Nations resolution. In the case of Syria, Russia and China, veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council have indicated they are opposed to any Libya-style intervention.
A NATO condemnation of Syria’s actions seems a more likely outcome of Tuesday’s alliance meeting, analysts say, though another verbal broadside from the international community seems unlikely to faze President Bashar Assad.
