The plane was on its route to Armenia to pick up Armenian peacekeepers serving under the German command in Afghanistan. They were to be trained by the German Defense Forces.
Spiegel reports a Turkish air traffic controller spontaneously and without any explanation refused to grant a flight permit to the German military aircraft. Germany had to send the plane to Armenia on a longer route, using Russia’s airspace, managing to transport the Armenian peacekeepers already in mid-August.
The newspaper says that it’s an ordinary phenomenon for the NATO member states to grant a flight permit through each other’s space. Thus, the German military calls this incident a deliberate provocation by Ankara. Spiegel also cites Turkey’s attitude towards Armenia, the absence of the diplomatic relations, as well as Turkey’s stance over the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
