The world is tense with the latest incident involving Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian warplane that crossed into its airspace during bomb attacks against Syrian rebels.
Turkey has attempted to justify its actions, stating it issued warnings against the Russian violation, before it took the unprecedented decision to fire on the plane.
The problem with Turkey’s selective defense and justification of its rights to protect its airspace is that the country’s air force is one of the biggest global violators of the very incident.
In 2014 alone, a total of 2,244 times, Turkish fighter jets violated Greek air space and in 2013 that total was 636 times.
A Politico story in July of 2015 covered the increase in Turkish violations of Greek air space— twenty such incidents on July 15, 2015 alone that followed by several incursions by Turkish helicopters the week before.
In addition to violating Greek air space, Turkey regularly violates the sovereign air space of Cyprus.
Turkish naval vessels also repeatedly breach national maritime borders of Greece. Over just seven months – from January to July 2015 – the Turkish Navy made 175 incursions into Greek maritime waters.