Assad: Turkish Jet Downed in Syrian Airspace, Issue “Shouldn’t Be Exaggerated”

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

Assad: Turkish Jet Downed in Syrian Airspace, Issue “Shouldn’t Be Exaggerated”

As he regretted the downing of a Turkish jet by Syrian forces, President Bashar al-Assad stressed the plane was dropped in the Syrian airspace, saying the incident should not be exaggerated.

Assad rejected Turkey's accusations that the Syrian defense forces intentionally shot down the Turkish F-4 jet.
"A country at war always acts like this, this plane was flying at a very low altitude and was shot down by anti-aircraft defenses which mistook it for an Israeli plane, which attacked Syria in 2007," he said in an interview with a Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet.

"The plane was flying in an air corridor used three times in the past by the Israeli airforce,” he said, adding he regretted the incident.
Assad said the soldier who shot down the plane had no radar and could not know to which country the plane belonged.

"If this plane had been shot down in international airspace we would not have hesitated to apologies," the president said.
The Syrian leader expressed the desire to turn the page on the incident with Turkey.

"We do not want to even consider that this plane was sent deliberately into our airspace," Assad said."We want to think of it as a pilot's error and we would consider this an isolated incident, which shouldn't be exaggerated ... We have nothing to gain in attacking a Turkish fighter jet."

Assad also said Syria had no plans to send troops to the border with Turkey after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodgan sent reinforcements of his troops to the frontier.

"Despite whatever the Erdogan government does, we will not proceed with a concentration of troops at the border. The Turkish people are friends and understand us."

He also sent his condolences to the families of the two pilots of the downed plane, who have not been found.