More Tension Between Turkey and Syria

By Alexa Karavos

There has been artillery fire between Syria and Turkey for several consecutive days now. The tension has been growing recently in result of the several mortar bombs landing on Turkeish grounds from the Syrian side. Turkey is retaliating and returning fire. Turkey's chief of staff, General Necdet Ozel, said their military response would be stronger if the shells continued to fall onto Turkish soil. The tension with Syria and Turkey raises a bigger issue by involving NATO. Turkey is a part of NATO, so if there were to be an attack on them, it would be an attack on all. NATO has plans to protect and defend Turkey if needed, though. The tension is also growing with the two countries because Turkey has many anti-Assad insurgencies and about 100,000 Syrian refugees have traveled onto Turkish grounds because of increase of violence.

Another event that happened that is not helping with the growing tension is that a Syrian plane was forced to land in Turkey. Two F-16 warplanes were sent from Turkey to force a Syrian Airbus A320 plane to land. The plane was traveling from Moscow to Damascus [through Turkish airspace] and had 37 passengers plus the crew. The reason the plane was forced to land was because there was suspicion of the military cargo being carried on the plane. Turkey does not want to help the Syrian government and does not want them to be receiving weapons. Cargo was taken from the plane and parts of a missile were found and confiscated. The plane was eventually allowed to leave and return on their way, just without the cargo. In The New York Times, Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, was quoted saying, "There are items that are beyond the ones that are legitimate and requited to be reported in civilian fights. There are items that we would rate as troublesome." Davutoglu was also quoted in ABC News talking about the confiscated equipment saying, "There are elements... that are not legitimate in civilian fights. If equipment is being carried under the guise of civilian flights or if they are not being declared, then of course we'll inspect it." Turkish planes are to now avoid Syrian airspace in fear of Syrian retaliation.