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Turkey downs Russian jet it says violated its territory

Fairfax Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard told Ross and John Russia’s relationship with Turkey had already been strained.

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Turkish officials have insisted that the warplane violated its airspace for 17 seconds – and ignored “21 warning messages in five minutes”.

Worldwide leaders have called for calm after Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane.

The Pentagon says no United States forces were involved in the Turkish downing of the Russian jet.

Putin said the downed plane, which Turkey said it had repeatedly warned, had been attacked inside Syria when it was 1 kilometre from the Turkish border and had come down 4 kilometres inside Syria.

The Dogan news agency, quoting unnamed military officials, said the plane crashed into Syrian territory close to the border with Turkey.

Despite 10 warnings, the aircraft “continued to violate” Turkish airspace, forcing the jets to down one of the two warplanes, stated Erdogan, without identifying the aircraft as Russian.

The ministry also complained that attempts to organise emergency cooperation with Turkey in the incident were unsuccessful.

In response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would cancel a visit to Ankara scheduled for Wednesday and warned Russians against travelling to Turkey due to the threat of terrorism. A Syrian rebel group sent a video to Reuters that appeared to show one of the pilots immobile and badly wounded on the ground and an official from the group said he was dead.

“As for calls for greater transparency and predictability in Russian and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military activities, they are up in the air”, Grushko said.

The president dismissed Russian claims that the plane had been on an anti-terror mission against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in northern Syria, saying that the area was populated by Syria’s Turkmen minority.

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Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Tuesday that the U.S.is “not able to conclude definitely right now where the aircraft were”, when Turkish aircraft shot down a Russian jet near the border Syria shares with Turkey. US President Barack Obama also backed Turkey’s right to defend its territory.

Smoke billows from the spot where the Su-24 warplane crashed in Hatay