DECIDING NOT TO BE EGYPT:

First, the delivery began July 12, three days ahead of the third anniversary of the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, which was led by followers of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen within the Turkish military. [...]

The most important sign was the choice of the Murted air base as the place of landing for Russian planes carrying the pieces of a system designed to shoot down NATO warplanes. It was the ultimate cue decoding the symbolism in terms of Turkey's relations with the United States. 

Murted had served as the headquarters of the botched attempt to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government. The F-16 jets that bombed the parliament and the police special operations center in Golbasi in the capital's outskirts had taken off from that base, which was called "Akinci" at the time. It is a Turkish tradition to rename places where bad events have happened. So did the air force. Two months after the coup attempt, it did away with "Akinci" and renamed the base "Murted," the name that had been used until 1995.

The landing of the S-400-carrying Russian planes at the same base from which putschist pilots had taken off exactly three years ago to bomb their "targets" in Ankara was a manifestation of the grave stage the crisis between Turkey and the United States has reached.

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