These are the NATO-men who want war. They look insignificant when you pass them in the straat. They will never fight themselves. They sit behind desks and decide, like a nazi-Schreibtischmörder, where civilians will have to die, in the first place those who can't defend themselves: women, children, the elderly. They enjoy their work. Hannah Arent called it 'the banality of evil,' when she wrote about Eichmann.
Credit
Andrea Comas/Reuters
MADRID — NATO officials issued a warning to Russia on Monday, and the United States began what officials called urgent consultations with Turkey, after Turkish fighter jets intercepted a Russian warplane that entered its airspace over the weekend.
Russia’s actions were “an unacceptable violation” of Turkish airspace, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said after meeting with the Turkish foreign minister, Feridun Sinirlioglu. Mr. Stoltenberg added, “Russia’s actions are not contributing to the security and stability of the region.”
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, speaking in Madrid during a news conference with his Spanish counterpart, said that American officials were conferring with Turkish counterparts over next steps.
“I don’t believe this was an accident,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly.
“Along with quite a bit of Russia’s behavior, this just affirms our deep concern over what they’re doing,” the official said, adding that Russia’s behavior “raises questions about basic safe conduct in the skies.”
A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Turkey told the Russian news service Interfax on Monday that the Russian Ministry of Defense had conceded a mistaken crossing into Turkish airspace, and provided an explanation to the Turkish military attaché in Moscow.
But Russia, which began its air campaign in Syria last Monday, showed no sign that it was backing down. In fact, Adm. Vladimir Komoyedov, the head of the armed forces committee in Russia’s Parliament, told news services that pro-Russian veterans of the conflict in eastern Ukraine side will “likely” start showing up as a volunteer battalion in Syria.
The episode in Turkish airspace occurred on Saturday, in the Hatay region close to the Syrian border, when a Russian warplane “exited Turkish airspace into Syria after being intercepted by two F-16s from the Turkish air force, which was conducting patrols in the region,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
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