“The murder incident, in particular, the words pronounced by the murderer, saying, “This is a revenge for Syria and Aleppo”, gives ground for specific projections and assumptions that the assassination traces go back to Syria, to the anti-government various groupings or at least stem from their interests as well as the Russian aerospace forces are carrying out military operations against them in the past 15 months. The matter primarily is about “Jaysh al-Fath” opposition alliance which unites a number of Syrian anti-government quite influential groupings, including “Jabhat al- Nusra”, “Ahrar al-Sham”, “Jaysh al-Islam” and so on,” – said expert in Arabic studies Armen Petrosyan, in a conversation with Aravot.am, referring to the statement of assuming the responsibility for the murder of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey by Syrian “Jaysh al-Fath” group.
In his description, it was the response and warning of the Syrian oppositions to Russia associated with the losing of Aleppo and the role of Russia in the territory of Syria in general, “It seems that with this murder, the oppositions declare a war or respond to Russia by warning that such attacks will be periodic if Moscow continues to attack the Syrian opposition positions.” We inquired about the process of the Russian-Turkish relations in this context, Armen Petrosyan first noted that given the Russian-Turkish high-level contacts and statements following the incident, the parties assessed the incident as an attack on the process of normalization of Turkish-Russian relations.
“There is an important reality which is not voiced. In general, the actions implemented against the diplomatic representation of any state, moreover, the murder of the head of the diplomatic representation of in the embassy-accepting country can cause serious problems and even a reason for conflict for these countries. There are even war operations registered in the history because of such incidents. But in this case, the murder is a result of a terrorist act, however, I think that as a result of shadow discussions and contacts, Russia will use this incident and the obvious flaws of the Turkish special services for receiving some political, perhaps military concessions from Turkey. Although this is not even voiced but Russia, indeed, can use this “trump card”. Whereas the shadow contacts are quite active, especially within the framework of the existing agreements between the two countries on the Syrian conflict,” – concluded Armen Petrosyan.
Luiza SUKIASYAN
