To provoke Russians is 'point of honour' for Turkey

Head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu commented on the incident with the Russian destroyer Smetlivy. According to him, there's a 'limit' to the Republic's patience. As we reported, a Turkish seiner appeared at a distance of 1,000 metres from the Russian guard-ship last Sunday. However, any attempts of the Russian ship to contact the vessel were not crowned with success. As a result, Smetlivy had to open warning fire, and managed to prevent the clash.
Oleg Valetsky, military expert at the Centre of Strategic Conjuncture:
'The Turks perceive themselves as a self-contained force, and it's 20 years since they've had a plan to restore the Turkish Empire in all seriousness, that is in the Balkans and the Caucasus. Thus, it played a role of a detonator in an outburst of emotions against Russia. Now, the number of such cases will increase. And not only at sea, but also on the ground, in the air, anywhere, at a personal, public, or political level. That is, even now Erdogan will not be able to stop this reaction even in case he wants to. I even don't think that this situation with the ships had been orchestrated in advance. A common captain, a Turk, when he sees the Russian flag, it may become just a point of honour for him to provoke the Russians. And as you see, there are no protests in Turkey against the Erdogan's policy. On the contrary, there can be seen the support of Erdogan at the public level.

Pravda.Ru