Recently, there has been a lot of criticism against Turkey's president Erdogan for shooting down a Russian warplane. There is no doubt that the decision to open fire was made after repeated warnings were issued to the Russian pilot. However, the surviving Russian airman denies that the jet flew over Turkish territory. 

I have no doubt that Turkey would not have taken such a serious step against a powerful country without considering the consequences. I believe that President Vladimir Putin has his own agenda in so many things. He is the leader of a country that is supposedly suffering sanctions as a result of its involvement in Ukraine and the abrupt annexation of Crimea. There is also a strong suspicion that it was a Russian missile that downed a commercial flight over Ukraine not so long ago! And now he is also supporting murderer Assad by eliminating all opposition from Syria.

One must also remember the many occasions when his warplanes have deliberately flown over British airspace - and the British Royal Air Force had to scramble its jets to kick these Russian warplanes out of its territory. So I think yes, we should give a lot of credit to Turkey for standing up to the bully boy from Russia.

Jos Edmond Zarb

Birkirkara