Arınç calls for end to speculations about hit jet
ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç yesterday ruled out any slight change in Turkey’s explanation about the jet downed in international airspace over the Mediterranean on June 22, while warning that this was not a topic that should resurface for comment every day.“Honestly, I didn’t think you would ask me this again. I don’t have a single word to add to my previous explanations,” Arınç said, pointing out that both he and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and have offered explanations on this topic in the past two days. His remarks came in response to reporters’ questions in reference to the Turkish Armed Forces’ (TSK) July 11 statement in which it for the first time declined to use the term “shot down by Syria.” Instead, it referred to “our plane that Syria claimed to have shot down.”
Reporters also reminded Arınç of the speculation beginning to arise about a piloting error that may have caused the jet to fall.
‘No need to linger on some nuances’
“There is no need to linger on some nuances and try to extract different meanings from these nuances. We are discussing a very important matter. A Turkish jet has been shot down, and the Syrian government said, ‘We shot it down.’ We know where it fell, where it was hit. ‘This or that was found or not found on the jet’s fragments, this statement was made while a statement was addressed, what does this mean?’ In fact, these are not the things we must be focusing on,” Arınç said. “As soon as the necessary investigations are completed, all this information will be communicated to you with every detail. Let’s all wait for that together.”
Erdoğan yesterday held separate closed-door meetings with Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan in Ankara.
