Russia and Foreign Policy Claims
Kuytul's assessment of the downing of the Russian plane
Fact
The subject is the December 2015 plane crisis. On 24 November 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the grounds of a border violation, and the plane came down on Syrian soil. Alparslan Kuytul was asked about the incident and gave a long assessment. This page is that assessment as it stood before it was cropped.
The main line of the text gathers into a single question: what is the bill for this step and who will pay it? The answer is set out under four headings — that Russia would retaliate, that the 5.7 billion dollars' worth of goods sold to Russia and the flow of natural gas were being put at risk, that in the event of a conflict NATO would not come, and that the rules of engagement had in fact been laid down against Syria.
Russia is not absolved: the same text says that the border was violated many times, that this may even have been done deliberately, and that in that case there was a trap. Against this it is argued that shooting the plane down, even if it did not lead to a hot war, would make a cold war certain.
The assessment does not recommend a passive or fearful policy; it recommends not making enemies of everyone at once. Its closing sentence is plain too, and never appears in the cropped recordings: it says that if, God forbid, a war were to break out, we would all fight against Russia together.
The text contains no judgement about today's Turkish-Russian relations; it belongs to the conditions of December 2015.
The claims produced from this assessment: the "Pro-Russian" claim and the claim about the remark "go ahead and shoot down Russia's plane".
The period: the December 2015 plane crisis
On 24 November 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the grounds of a border violation. In the following weeks the subject became the most talked-about in the country, and Alparslan Kuytul was asked about it as well. The headings below are the whole of the answer he gave in those days. The entire text belongs to the conditions of December 2015.
The expectation of retaliation
The starting point was this: although Russian planes had violated NATO airspace many times, until then no state had shot down a Russian plane. For such a step to go unanswered would mean Russia losing its standing as a superpower; a response would therefore come.
By the time the talk was given, the response had already begun: seven Turkish trucks had been hit and their drivers killed. Businesspeople who had travelled to Russia for a trade fair had been taken into custody, ill-treated and deported. Russia announced that from 1 January 2016 it would impose visas on Turkey. President Erdoğan's proposal to meet at the gathering in France was rejected by Putin, who said he would not meet unless an apology was made.
The economic tie
At that time Turkey was selling 5.7 billion dollars' worth of goods to Russia, and Russia had announced that it would stop these purchases. No other market was in sight to take over that volume. Most of the natural gas came from the same country too; it was recalled that if the flow were cut off, the stock in hand would last two weeks. Relations with Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Iran were already tense. Adding Russia to that list, it was said, did not sit with the claim to be a regional power.
NATO will not come
The first official statement from the United States treated the incident as a matter between Turkey and Russia; that is, since Russia was not the attacking party, no obligation of the alliance would arise. Although some statements of support came later, it was said that these should not be relied on. Two grounds were given: in the 1980s NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, General Rogers, had said he did not think the alliance would help in a conflict between Turkey and Russia. And on 8 December 2015 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the alliance would not send troops to Syria against ISIS. This was assessed as a message given to Turkey as well.
The rule of engagement
It was being said that the plane had been shot down in accordance with the rules of engagement. The objection was this: those rules had been laid down against Syria; applying the same automatic measure to a superpower is a separate decision. The question asked was plain: when a plane of Iran, Iraq, France, Britain or Greece violates the border tomorrow, will the same thing be done? It was argued that the rule needed to be reviewed.
The Mosul example
In those same days the central government of Iraq had demanded that Turkish soldiers leave Iraqi soil and had said it could invite Russia if necessary. On 10 December 2015 President Erdoğan said the soldiers would not withdraw from Mosul; four days later, on 14 December 2015, Prime Minister Davutoğlu had to announce that the soldiers had left the Bashiqa camp. This was given as an example of the picture that emerges when a hard statement has no counterpart on the ground.
The Saddam comparison
The subject of the comparison was not a person but a method: first to embolden, then to leave alone. Saddam Hussein had been supported politically, economically and militarily; trusting in that strength he went to war with Iran, entered Kuwait in 1991, struck his own people in Halabja, and in the end not one friend was left to him; when the United States invaded Iraq his army did not fight for him. From this was drawn the warning that Turkey too could be provoked and then left alone.
Where the text ends
The assessment does not recommend a passive and fearful policy; it recommends not making enemies of everyone at once. The criticism directed at the government is made not as a declaration of enmity but on the ground that those who do not call a wrong a wrong are dragging the country into danger without realising it. The position taken towards the possibility of war is plain in a single sentence: it says that if, God forbid, a war were to break out, we would all fight against Russia together. This sentence never appears in the cropped recordings.
The claims produced from this text: the "Pro-Russian" claim — the claim about the remark "go ahead and shoot down Russia's plane". The method used: how cropped videos are produced.