The "Pro-Russian" Claim

Distorted

Claim

Alparslan Kuytul is pro-Russian; when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane he defended Russia and took a position against his own country.

Claimed by: Social media accounts that shared the cropped clip, and some media outlets that turned the clip into news1 December 2015Source

Fact

The subject is December 2015. On 24 November 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the grounds of a border violation, and the incident stayed at the top of the agenda for weeks. After a Friday talk Alparslan Kuytul was asked about this, and he gave a long answer. The clip put into circulation is three or four seconds of that answer.

The judgement that remains in the clip is this: shooting down the plane was wrong. What is not in the clip, a few sentences further on in the same answer, is this:

"Of course, God forbid, if a war were to break out, of course we would all fight against Russia together, that is a separate matter. But this event was not right, and that too needs to be stated."

The reasons for the warning are in the same speech as well, and all of them belong to Turkey's own calculation: 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 stand beside us. Russia's border violations, on the other hand, are not denied; they are put on the record explicitly in the same speech.

Why this label, "Distorted"?

The side of the claim that is true is this: Kuytul did find the shooting down of the plane wrong, and he said so without holding back. We are not hiding this.

But this is not a fault. To find a decision wrong does not mean taking the side of the opposing party. The distortion lies not in making him say a sentence he did not say, but in cutting away the reason for the sentence he did say, and what followed it.

The period: December 2015

On 24 November 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the grounds of a border violation. Throughout the following weeks it was the most talked-about subject in Turkey. After a Friday talk Alparslan Kuytul was asked about it, and he gave an answer lasting several minutes in which he set out his reasons one by one. The recording circulated on the internet, however, was three or four seconds of that answer.

What is at the point of the cut

The part taken into the clip is this:

"As for the shooting down of the Russian plane, in my view this was wrong. This was something that should not have happened. Now, some people may be defending it in this way out of nationalist feelings — as if there were a war going on. They will soon see the harm of it; one has to act with common sense."

The continuation of the same answer, however, was not taken into the clip:

"This is not being against the government, it is not being against Turkey. In fact, those who do not call a wrong a wrong are the ones dragging Turkey into danger... Of course, God forbid, if a war were to break out, of course we would all fight against Russia together, that is a separate matter. But this event was not right, and that too needs to be stated."

Between the two parts there is not even half a minute. The whole of the "pro-Russian" claim stands on the cutting out of that half minute.

The reasons are Turkey's calculation, not Russia's

The grounds for the warning are listed in the same speech, and none of them is built on Russia being in the right:

That Russia would respond — by the time the speech was delivered, seven Turkish lorries had been hit and their drivers killed, and business people who had travelled to Russia for a trade fair had been detained and deported. Russia had announced that from 1 January 2016 it would require visas from Turkey.
That the 5.7 billion dollars' worth of goods Turkey sells to Russia and the flow of natural gas would be put at risk.
That in the event of a conflict NATO would not come — the basis for this is the statement of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg dated 8 December 2015, announcing that the alliance would not send troops to Syria against ISIS.
That the rules of engagement had been laid down against Syria, and that applying the same measure to a superpower ought to count as a separate decision.

For all of these headings and for the remaining parts of the speech: the assessment he made on the shooting down of the Russian plane.

Russia's violations appear in the same speech too

The speech does not absolve Russia. It says openly that Russia violated Turkey's border many times; it even states that this may be being done deliberately, that if so the situation is more dangerous still, and that there may be a trap involved. One of the possibilities listed is that Turkey took this step after the Bayır Bucak Turkmens were hit. In a text defending Russia these sentences would have no place.

The answer itself: "everyone spends from what they have beside them"

After the cropped clip spread, a campaign full of insults began. Kuytul responded to it with a saying attributed to the Prophet Jesus: when the enemies of Islam said harsh words to him, the disciples reported the matter, and he said "everyone spends from what they have beside them". In the whole of the answer there is not a single insult directed at the other side; the question asked is this: what will those who greeted the shooting down of the plane with songs of heroism say to the officials' later statement that, had it been known the plane was Russian, it would not have been hit?

A second claim produced from the same speech: the claim about the words "go on then, shoot down Russia's plane". The method itself: how cropped videos are produced.