Turkey's downing of the Su-24 bomber requires a firm response from Russia, Srdja Trifkovic, Foreign Affairs Editor at Chronicles magazine, told Radio Sputnik on Wednesday.
On Wednesday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that "we have serious doubts that this was an unplanned act. This looks very much like a planned provocation," which requires Russia to reassess relations with Turkey.
"I would hope that after this reassessment (of Russian Turkish relations referred to by Lavrov) something along these lines will follow, because now Erdogan is talking about getting back to normal, but at the same time, he is repeating that Turkey was justified in taking this action."
"What remains to be seen now is whether this planned provocation, and there is no doubt that it was planned provocation, was a unilateral move by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or whether it was some form of joint criminal conspiracy between him and NATO headquarters in Brussels, and the government in Washington."
"My hunch is that it could have been Erdogan's rogue provocation, premeditated on his own accord, and now he is counting on NATO to support him after this fait accompli."
"I don't think that either the US or the rest of NATO will be prepared to escalate this issue to the point of no return, I think they know very well the nature of the beast they're dealing with in Erdogan, and their intelligence services have already supplied them with sufficient information as to what the facts of the case are."
