Turkey Locates the Jet Shot Down by Syria

The wreckage of a Turkish jet shot down by Syria has been located in Syrian waters, but the search continues for two pilots.

It comes as Nato agreed to a request from Turkey for an emergency meeting of member states on Tuesday to discuss its response to the incident.

The jet was shot down over the Mediterranean on Friday, about eight miles from the Syrian coast.

Turkey's foreign minister has claimed the plane was hit without warning in international airspace. Ahmet Davutoglu said the F4 Phantom jet momentarily strayed into Syrian airspace - but was not on a spying mission. He said the plane was unarmed and had no "covert mission related to Syria," and was on a training flight to test Turkey's radar capabilities. Syria has said its action was "not an attack", but took down the plane because it violated its airspace.

While Mr Davutoglu admitted the plane had entered Syrian airspace by mistake, he asserted it was shot down in "international airspace" several minutes after it left, and without warning. Mr Davutoglu told state TV: "According to our conclusions, our plane was shot down in international airspace, 13 nautical miles from Syria. "The plane did not show any sign of hostility toward Syria and was shot down about 15 minutes after having momentarily violated Syrian airspace."

The minister said there was no warning from Syria before it shot down the plane, adding: "The Syrians knew full well that it was a Turkish military plane and the nature of its mission."

Tensions have been growing between the neighbouring countries since the incident on Friday, with the international community urging both nations to exercise restraint. Mr Davutoglu said he would present the incident formally to the Nato military alliance under article four of its founding treaty. The article provides for states to "consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened".

It stops short of the explicit mention of possible armed responses cited in article five.

Turkey has taken in more than 30,000 refugees who have fled the violence in Syria and the year-long uprising against President Bashar al Assad. British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned Syria's shooting down of the plane as "an outrageous act".

"This deplorable incident underlines the urgent need to find a solution to the current crisis in Syria in order to bring an end to the violence and to achieve a genuine political transition," he said.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.