Follow us on:
1526 18th St., NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.483.9090 | 202.483.9092 fx |  www.ataa.org
Community Information Service
November 27, 2015 / No:857

ATAA Condemns Russian Aggression in Syria 

Russian airstrikes in Syria which began in late September killed more civilians than Islamic State militants and took their biggest toll among rebel forces battling President Bashar Al-Assad. In the meantime, Russian war planes violated Turkish air-space many times undermining Turkish sovereignty. Russian aggression in Syria and in the region must stop.

Russian air strikes killed over 400 Syrian civilians, at least 97 children among casualties of military operations which began in late September. On November 24, 2015, two Turkish Air Force F-16s downed a Russian warplane.  NATO, which met immediately in Brussels, confirmed that two Russian jets were in Turkish and therefore NATO airspace, and that the targets that the Russian jets were bombing were not ISIS, but civilian villages inhabited by Turkmens, Arabs, and Kurds opposed to the Assad regime.  

NATO and the United States verified that the Turkish pilots had locked onto the two Russian jets for at least ten minutes, warning the Russian pilots at least 10 times that they will be engaged if they do not cease their invasion.  The Russian pilots did not heed the warnings.  The Turkish Air Force shot one jet down while the other was permitted to retreat.
 
The Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) supports the Turkish Air Force in the protection of Turkish air space as well as the 8-mile air space sanctioned by the United Nations on either side of the Turkish - Syrian border.  ATAA commends Ankara for engaging in discussions with Moscow to invite Russia to the collective mission of fighting ISIS.
 
ATAA commends the Turkmen people for their resilience and Turkey for hosting 2.5 millions of Syrian refugees. Recent Russian air strikes are causing further refugee flood into Turkey and Europe. ATAA urges the US, Turkey, NATO and Russia to work together to eliminate ISIS and resolve this humanitarian crisis in Syria.

 
ATAA, representing over 60 local chapters and 500,000 Turkish Americans throughout the United States, serves locally and in Washington DC to empower the Turkish American community through civic engagement, and to support strong US-Turkish relations through education and advocacy.  Established in 1979, ATAA is the largest, democratically elected Turkish American membership organization in the United States.  As a non-faith based organization, ATAA is open to people of diverse backgrounds.  The ATAA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed under the laws of the District of Columbia. To learn more about ATAA, please visit www.ataa.org.
© Entire contents copyright 2015 by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations. All rights reserved. 
 
This article may be reprinted without the permission of ATAA and free of charge under the conditions that the entirety of the article is printed without alteration to text, art or graphics,  the title of the reprinted or republished version attributes the article to ATAA, and the ATAA website link http://www.ataa.org is  included in the reprinted or republished version.