AWE wrote:Paphitis wrote:
Let me make myself very clear.
There are some countries willing to down a commercial airliner in their airspace if it is deemed necessary and those countries, mine included, could not give a fuck about public opinion or whether you consider it mass murder.
I don't doubt that Cyprus would not do it, but this is main reason why Cyprus is in the situation it is today because Turkey knows full well that Cypriots don't have the back bone to stand up for themselves.
Those airliners flying regular routes into Tymbou are actually violating Cypriot National Airspace, so there is nothing ICAO or the UN could do if Cyprus actually had the means to start intercepting commercial airliners.
Cyprus would just be attempting to regain control of its FIR and national airspace and there is nothing illegal about that.
Of course, the Aus, UK, USA and many others will shoot down an airliner "if it is deemed necessary" and they would have the right to do so - if it had turned off it's beacon, was not responding to calls, and on a path that diverted from the normal routes i.e. the very real possibility of a 9/11 repeat would be present.
But downing an airliner on a regular route, recognised or not but flown since 1975, would if a Turkish aircraft be counted by Turkey as an act of war, if a TRNC aircraft very good reason for the TCs to lose any trust they have in the RoC/GCs, and by international public opinion as mass murder.
I can tell you for a fact, that the shooting down of an airliner, under certain circumstances is considered a sovereign right of a nation.
And now for the evidence:
The following document outlines the
EMERGNENCY PROCEDURES on
INTERCEPTION.
This document is part of the
ICAO approved Australian ERSA EMERG document of The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority,
Section 5.12 clearly shows the Emergency Procedures to be followed by aircraft if intercepted by fighter aircraft.
Any aircraft which do not follow these procedures will be destroyed, including passenger aircraft which have violated the FIR, deviated from the cleared flight path, or violated Defence Restricted Areas or Control Zones. Aircraft that deviate from their flight path and do not respond when intercepted will be deemed as hijacked and hence "hostile" and will be destroyed.
The following document also implies the intent of the Australian Defence Force to destroy any aircraft which do not conform to any security directives. It is a letter outlining the special approvals for my employer to operate within a Restricted Area of airspace (R902) during the APEC summit in Sydney. Non compliance of the Air Defence Identification Zone procedures in this airspace will result in INTERCEPTION, and any non compliance with the EMERGENCY PROCEDURES would deem the aircraft as hostile. The RAAF will then destroy the aircraft, even if that aircraft was a QANTAS 747 airliner carrying 400+ passengers. During this period, F18 aircraft were on 24/7 patrol of the airspace and with additional aircraft on high alert ready for the possibility of shooting down any aircraft at a moment's notice. All this for George Bush official visit to Australia in 2007 for the APEC summit.
The blacked out parts basically just hide my current employer and hence ID.
When an aircraft enters Restricted or Prohibited Airspace, then the recognised authority does have the right to shoot it down provided that the rules of engagement are met, and the aircraft has had sufficient opportunity to follow the procedures as set down by the Recognised Authority's rules on rogue aircraft.
So what could prohibit Cyprus declaring her northern airspace as prohibited or restricted airspace given the fact that the RoC is the only ICAO recognised authority in Cyprus?Australia is willing to defend her FIR at all costs, and so are many other countries. It appears that Cyprus however is unwilling to STOP FIR violations which are occurring daily.
But downing an airliner on a regular route, recognised or not but flown since 1975, would if a Turkish aircraft be counted by Turkey as an act of war, if a TRNC aircraft very good reason for the TCs to lose any trust they have in the RoC/GCs, and by international public opinion as mass murder.
I will now answer your question above.
Firstly, you are quite right when you state that Cyprus will not go down this path as other countries have done. This is really a major problem in my opinion and the reason why Cypriots will never achieve a just and viable solution to the Cyprus Problem. Cypriot politicians are unfit to protect the interests of their citizens, and in fact I will even go further and state that Cypriot politicians are even unfit to lead an East African Third World country. This is the issue I wish to highlight.
Many times you hear Cypriot politicians refer to
"DIEKDITIKI POLITIKI" and yet everything is the exact opposite to what they preach.
Cypriot Politicians are incompetent which means everything will fall and rest on the shoulders of Cypriot Citizens as they are the last line of defence for their politicians incompetencies just like they were in 2004.
But let's say for argument sake that Cyprus did proceed with asserting sovereignty over ALL her airspace and actually downed an aircraft. This act may well be deemed as an Act of War by Turkey, but in reality I believe Turkey would be powerless to do anything because the superpowers and NATO would not allow it. It may even motivate the international community to intervene in Cyprus militarily. And yet this may not be the case either as I'm only speculating. It would be a
massive risk to down an aircraft approaching Tymbou and it may or may not backfire. What is certain is that Cyprus does have the legal right to regain control of her northern national airspace and this is the point I wish to get across, as well as highlight our politicians incompetencies with the handling of the Cyprus Issue.
Cypriot Politicians just set one precedent after another, just like they did when in 1975 they did absolutely NOTHING to prevent Commercial Airliners operating to Tymbou. Cyprus has never had a leader capable of making the hard decisions necessary to defend her sovereignty and this is clearly why the world and the UN basically does not care enough about The Cyprus Issue to do anything about it because the world has much bigger problems atm such as Iran, North Korea, the Israeli/Palestinian Crisis, Afghanistan, emergence of Taliban in Pakistan, and Iraq.