Turkish PM: We’ll teach aggressors lesson

Turkey has no intention of attacking anyone, but will “teach those who dare to test the limits of its might,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday as he introduced Turkey’s first domestically produced training jet to the public in a show of the nation’s increasing defense capacity.

Erdoğan did not refer to Syria directly, but his remarks came amid escalating tensions with Turkey’s southern neighbor after an RF-4E Phantom, an unarmed reconnaissance version of the F-4 fighter jet, was shot down by Syria in the Mediterranean on Friday.

“We will never avoid teaching a lesson to gang-run states that have no legitimacy in the eyes of their public, those who resort to state terrorism against their people and those who dare to test the limits of Turkey’s might,” Erdoğan said at a ceremony in Ankara marking the primary and basic trainer aircraft HÜRKUŞ’s first release from the hangar.

“We will respond to hostile attitudes against us, attacks and threats in the strongest manner, using all the power and inspiration we derive from our history,” he added.

Erdoğan reacted strongly to Syria’s shooting down of the jet and warned Damascus in a speech on Tuesday that that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have been given instructions to treat any approaching Syrian military unit as a threat.

Erdoğan also said that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has become a “clear and present danger” to Turkey’s security. Ankara has long been saying that the Assad regime, facing a 16-month-long uprising, has been massacring its own people and that it has lost legitimacy, and insists that Assad should leave power.

Speaking on Wednesday, Erdoğan said Turkey has no intention of attacking anyone. “We are investing in [the defense industry] to preserve peace and eliminate all threats against our unity and integrity,” he stressed.

news@theasian.asia