EU condemns Syria’s downing of Turkish Jet, urges probe

The foreign ministers of 27 EU members states condemned on Monday Syria’s shooting down of a Turkish military plane and urged a thorough investigation into the incident.

“The European Union notes that this is a matter which needs to be investigated thoroughly and urgently,” the EU Council of Ministers said in a statement.

The bloc will not support military action in the troubled country; “What happened is to be considered very seriously [but] we do not go for any interventions,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal, while EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton said the EU “will be obviously looking to Turkey to be restrained in its response.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also urged calm. “I think it is still important that we continue to work on a political solution (to the Syrian crisis),” Westerwelle said as he arrived for a regular meeting of EU ministers. “De-escalation is crucial at this moment.”

The EU ministers met in Luxembourg for a regular conference, one day before a scheduled NATO meeting to discuss how to react to Friday’s incident, which Turkey says occurred in international airspace and without warning. Turkey is a member of NATO, but is only a candidate for membership of the European Union.

Turkey has said the jet mistakenly strayed into Syrian airspace on Friday, but was quickly warned to leave by Turkish authorities and was a mile (1.6 kilometers) inside international airspace when it was shot down.

Syria said it was unaware that the jet belonged to Turkey and that it was protecting its air space against an unknown intruder.

The EU has called on Syria to “cooperate fully with Turkey and allow full access for an immediate investigation, and for the international community to give its support to such efforts.”

Similarly, British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for increased pressure, but said the jet incident did not fundamentally alter the situation in Syria, where Assad has been suppressing a 16-month revolt against his rule.

“I don’t think it illustrates a different phase,” Hague said. “It’s very important that we increase the pressure with additional sanctions. Other countries will be very active in arguing for a new resolution from the [United Nations] Security Council.” <Cihan>

news@thasian.asia