ANKARA, turkey — Syria said Saturday it shot down a Turkish reconnaissance plane because the plane entered its airspace, insisting it was “not an attack” as both sides tried to de-escalate the episode before it exploded into a regional conflagration.
Turkey threatened to retaliate but did not say what action it would take as it searched for the aircraft’s two missing pilots.
The downed plane heightened tensions between two countries that had been allies before Syria’s 15-month violent uprising and signaled that the violence gripping Syria is bleeding outside its borders. Germany and Iraq were among the countries urging restraint in the region.
Syria and neighboring Turkey had cultivated close ties before the Syrian revolt began in March 2011, but since then Turkey has become one of the strongest critics of Syria’s regime. Turkey hosts civilian and military Syrian opposition groups, including hundreds of army defectors who are affiliated with the Free Syrian Army and collect food and other supplies to deliver to comrades on smuggling routes.
Turkish authorities also suspect Damascus, which was collaborating with Turkey in its fight against autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels, is turning a blind eye to Syria-based Kurdish fighters who belong to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, considered a terrorist organization in the U.S. and Europe.
The plane, an unarmed F-4, went down in the Mediterranean Sea about eight miles from the Syrian town of Latakia, Turkey said. Syria claimed the jet violated its air space over territorial waters, penetrating about half a mile. It said Syrian forces only realized it was a Turkish jet after firing at it.
In a telephone interview with Turkish TV news channel A Haber on Saturday, Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the downing was “not an attack.”
“An unidentified object entered our air space and unfortunately as a result it was brought down. It was understood only later that it was a Turkish plane,” A Haber quoted Makdissi in a translation of the interview. “There was no hostile act against Turkey whatsoever. It was just an act of defense for our sovereignty.”
Turkish President Abdullah Gul conceded the plane might have unintentionally crossed into Syrian airspace but said such an act was “routine” for jets to unintentionally cross borders for short periods. The government has not described the plane’s specific mission.
Gul said his government was still investigating what happened, but “no one should have any doubt that whatever (action) is necessary will be taken.”
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Key posts unchanged in new Syrian government • BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree forming a new government Saturday, but it will be headed by a key loyalist and the foreign, defense and interior ministers kept their jobs.
Syria’s new government is headed by Riad Farid Hijab, a former agriculture minister and a loyalist member of the ruling Baath Party.
A deadly uprising has convulsed Syria for more than a year, and Assad has promised to enact political reforms. He vowed after the May 7 parliamentary elections to make the government more inclusive to politicians from other parties.
But the appointment of Hijab and the decision to keep the key posts unchanged raised questions about the commitment to that pledge. The opposition boycotted the parliamentary elections, saying they were designed to strengthen Assad’s grip on power.
Parliament is considered little more than a rubber stamp in Syria, where Assad and a tight coterie of advisers hold the real power.
Activists estimate that more than 14,000 people have been killed since the start of the uprising against Assad’s regime in March 2011. The Associated Press
