The jet had violated Turkey’s airspace according to a radar tracking diagram provided by the Turkish Chief of General Staff.
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Russian Federation supports the Syrian regime, and at the end of September began launching airstrikes in the country.
Murakhtin, speaking in televised remarks from the Russian base in Syria where he was taken Wednesday, said he was fully confident their plane didn’t veer into the Turkish airspace, “not even for a single second”.
A furious Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of “significant consequences” for an attack which he described as a “stab in the back by the terrorists’ accomplices”. The Turkish border is less than 30 miles away. All ground-strike missions will also now be covered by fighter aircraft.
Russian Federation made clear it could target Turkey economically.
“Nobody should expect us to remain silent against the constant violation of our border security, the ignoring of our sovereign rights”, Erdogan said.
“It has been said that they were there to fight Daesh”, he said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “The military doctors work miracles”, he said.
“The plane was shot down in Syria’s airspace”, he said.
Lavrov shrugged off the Turkish argument that it had no other choice but to shoot the plane down, pointing at the 2012 downing of a Turkish warplane by Syria in its airspace, saying that Ankara argued then that a brief incursion wasn’t a reason to shoot down its jet.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning said the incident was a “matter of great concern”.
Lavrov said “we have no intention to go to war with Turkey”. “The facts and the circumstances are not, of course, yet known”.
“There obviously will be issues between Turkey and Russian Federation as to which side of the border the place was on, but restraint it essential”.
“Australia’s objective is to operate in Syria as part of the collective self-defence of Iraq against ISIL or Daish, so our objective is limited to that”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that his country doesn’t wish to escalate tensions with Russian Federation over the downing of the plane. “I will ask the commanders to keep me at the air base”.
Russian forces launched a heavy bombardment against insurgent-held areas in Syria’s Latakia province on Wednesday, near where the warplane was shot down, rebels and a monitoring group said.
But Moscow has released their own version, which shows the SU-24 never leaving the Syrian skies.
Russian officials expressed fury over Turkey’s action and spoke of retaliatory measures that were likely to include curbing travel by Russian tourists to Turkish resorts and some restrictions on trade.
Syria’s government refers to all rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad as terrorists.
Adding to the tensions were the fates of the two Russian pilots aboard the bomber.
He said the rescue operation was carried out by Syrian commandos, aided by the Russians who pinpointed the soldier’s location through Global Positioning System.
“Russia says one of the helicopter crewmen was killed, but the rest were evacuated safely”.
Russia will deploy S-400 defense missile systems to Hmeymim airbase in Syria, Russian Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoygu said Thursday, Sputnik News reports. And the foreign ministers of these two nations have already spoken by phone and plan to meet in person over the coming days, the news agency also reported, citing Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic.
He said the risk of attacks “is no less of a threat than in Egypt” where all 224 people on-board a Russian passenger jet were killed in October in an attack claimed by IS.
“The leaders agreed on the importance of de-escalating the situation and pursuing arrangements to ensure that such incidents do not happen again”, it said.
“This highlights the importance of having and respecting arrangements to avoid such incidents in the future”, he said.
Putin could also seek to hurt Turkey economically, analysts said.
Turkey is one of the most important suppliers of fruits and vegetables to Russia, and its role in the Russian market has increased since Moscow’s introduction of the food embargo on European Union countries.
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Assad’s other key ally Iran also slammed Ankara’s behaviour.
