Obama urges Turkey, Russia to avoid cold war escalation

U.S. President Barack Obama urged Russia and Turkey to avoid wartime escalation after the latter shot Russia’s fighter jet down on Tuesday.

Obama, on the latest Turkey-Russia incident, believed that Turkey had a right to defend its airspace. He added that it was Russia that used Turkey-Syria border to carry out its air activity, which resulted in such a huge mishap. However, the U.S. president also asked the two Cold War rivals not to escalate the situation anymore, which could deteriorate their relations. Obama said that his top priority would be to ensure “this does not escalate.”

Obama resisted the increasing pressure of using military force to fight against the Islamic State militants. In addition, he tried to persuade Russia into fight against global terrorism rather than attacking Syrian rebels near the Turkish border.

“If Russia is directing its energies towards Daesh and ISIL, some of those conflicts or potentials for mistakes or escalation are less likely to occur,” Obama stated.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the armed forces of Turkey for supporting the ISIS group. “I cannot call what happened today anything else,” he said while speaking at a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II in the Black Sea resort, Sochi. “Today’s tragic event will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations. We will of course carefully analyse everything that happened.”

Putin claimed that Russia would not tolerate such misdeeds like what Turkey did. Meanwhile, Turkey wrote a letter to the U.N. Security Council, saying that it shot down the plane when it was within Turkish air space. The downed plane took flight with one more fighter jet and then remained inside the Turkish border until 17 seconds. The air authorities warned the pilot 10 times in five minutes to change the direction, but there was no response.

“Nobody should doubt that we made our best efforts to avoid this latest incident. But everyone should respect the right of Turkey to defend its borders,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

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