Instead, President Tayyip Erdogan said Moscow should apologise for violating his country’s airspace.
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“I think this is a good proposal and tomorrow President Hollande will talk to us in greater detail about it. We would be ready to seriously consider the necessary measures for this”, Lavrov said on Wednesday.
The Turkish Ambassador to the United Nations Halit Cevik said in a letter to the Security Council that two planes were involved, one of which was shot down while the other left Turkish airspace.
The possibility of an armed confrontation between Turkey and Russia continued to heighten after the Russian government beefed up its military assets at a Syrian base just a few miles from the Turkish border.
Syrian activists say there have been fresh airstrikes in northern Syria, near the Turkish border.
Russian Federation and Turkey have found themselves on opposing sides in Syria’s conflict, with Russian Federation supporting President Al-Assad, while Turkey is a staunch critic.
Russian Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukaev at the same session said that economic sanctions would affect Turkstream, the planned gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey announced by Putin last December, and the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which it signed an agreement with Russia to build in May 2010.
Turkey stands to lose out heavily if Russia ends visa-free travel between the countries, at that could redirect some Russian tourists to domestic destinations like Crimea. Erdogan also said Ankara had no intention of escalating tensions with Russian Federation. Murakhtin was extracted in a 12-hour joint operation by Russian and Syrian special forces, in which a Russian marine died.
Turkey and its allies say Russia’s real aim is to prop up its ally Assad and that it has been bombing moderate opposition groups in areas of Syria like Latakia, where the jet was downed, and where there is little or no Islamic State presence.
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“Erdogan claims that a Russian aircraft entered Turkey’s airspace for a few seconds, forgetting that its own planes violate Iraqi and Syrian airspace every day”, he said in a statement. “Our planes shot down an unidentified plane only after it ignored our warnings”, he said. “Do not deceive us!” And the two countries’ foreign ministers have already spoken by phone and plan to meet in person over the coming days, the news agency reported, citing a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman. “A much shorter time than it takes for the Turkish fighters in this case to be scrambled, take off and shoot down the Russian plane, which is a clear indication that this whole incident was preplanned”. It said that images from radar displays were shown to the Russian attaches during visits in Ankara.
