YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 24, ARMENPRESS. Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of NAS RA Ruben Safrastyan offers to consider the Russian warplane’s down by Turkish air force not in bilateral domain: in Russia or Turkey, but in trilateral domain. As Turkey is a NATO member, hence it is also an incident between NATO and Russian Federation.

Safrastyan considers the incident as dangerous during the interview with “Armenpress”, adding that it will increase the tension between Turkey and Russian Federation and can have dangerous developments. “We need to wait and see what decision the sides will make. I would say that the main decision-maker is Moscow,” Safrastyan told, not excluding that the decision can be very strict. At the same time, the expert in Turkish studies does not exclude that the warplane’s destruction can be a Turkish provocation to make Russia give up continuation of military operations in Syria. According to Safrastyan, the mentioned territory is the only part of Turkish-Syrian border which ISIL fighters control along 96 km. Therefore, Turkey needs to keep the situation in every way.