In the ongoing story of confusing (as even the US has now said Syria was in its right to defend itself) yet continuing Turkish provocation, whereby a Turkish jet was shot down after entering Syrian airspace, resulting in immediate NATO-wide escalations and fighter jets being scrambled every single day since, the latest news is that the pilots who had been hoped to be alive, have been found dead.
From Today's Zaman [3]:
The bodies of two pilots, who had been reported missing after Syrian forces downed a Turkish military jet on June 22, have been found in the Mediterranean Sea, the General Staff has said.
The General Staff said in a statement posted online on Wednesday that the bodies of Capt. Gökhan Ertan and Lt. Hasan Hüseyin Aksoy were found deep in the sea bed and that efforts are still under way to retrieve the two men's remains. The military also expressed its condolences to the families of the pilots.
The military has been conducting a search operation since the jet was downed on June 22 and this week brought in a specialised ship to recover the wreckage, some 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) underwater.
Syrian forces shot down a Turkish F-4 Phantom, an unarmed reconnaissance version of the F-4 fighter jet, which according to Ankara was on a solo mission to test domestic radar systems and was hit in international airspace after it briefly strayed into Syrian airspace, on June 22.
This latest development will hardly difuse tensions in the field, where news of rekindled military escalations yesterday sent crude soaring by the most in months, and Brent back over $100.