Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "A brazen and unacceptable act" ... Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Photo: Reuters
DAMASCUS: Syria has warned NATO its territory is ''sacred'' and that a Turkish fighter jet it downed violated its sovereignty, as the alliance prepared to hold an emergency meeting today.
''What happened is a gross violation of Syrian sovereignty,'' a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad al-Makdissi, said.
''If the goal of the meeting is to calm the situation and promote stability, we wish it success. [But] if the goal of the meeting is aggression, we say that Syrian airspace, territory and waters are sacred for the Syrian army, just as Turkish airspace, territory and waters are sacred for the Turkish army.''
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The comments came as 33 Syrian soldiers, including one general and two colonels, fled to Turkey and joined the growing ranks of rebels who have sought refuge there since the revolt against the regime of Bashar al-Assad erupted nearly 16 months ago, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported yesterday.
The European Union said it had imposed fresh sanctions on Syria, as China urged Turkey and Syria to ''settle the issue through diplomatic channels''.
The NATO meeting will discuss competing Turkish and Syrian claims about whether the plane was shot down in international airspace or inside Syrian territory.
Turkey has already acknowledged its jet might have entered Syrian airspace. But after an initially cautious response, Ankara toughened its rhetoric.
''It was an act of war,'' a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman, Selcuk Unal, said. ''They shot down a plane over international waters, and this is unacceptable.''
In Washington, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, called the downing of the jet ''a brazen and unacceptable act'' and said the US was consulting with its allies and partners regarding ''next steps'' that should be taken against Syria.
Although immediate military action seems unlikely, Turkey's request for a NATO meeting puts the Syrian crisis on the alliance's agenda for the first time since the uprising began, and the development was ''very significant,'' said Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar.
''The preferred option for everyone, including the United States, is still a political solution,'' he said. ''But whereas a few days ago a military option was not on the cards, now it will be discussed in a way it hasn't been for the past year and a half. It activates NATO, which we haven't seen before.''
The Turkish jet had been on an unarmed training mission to do a radar system test, and both pilots are still missing.
Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse, The Washington Post