In an apparent shift in the Russian position, Putin said Moscow is now willing to cooperate with opposition groups fighting ISIS, which could mean backing rebel forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who Russia considers its only ally in the region.
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The move comes amid a bitter spat between Moscow and Ankara over a Russian warplane downed by Turkey on Tuesday.
Russia claims it was a ground-to-air affront, while Turkey claims the incident was an air-to-air strike and that the Russian jet was violating its airspace.
IHLAS NEWS AGENCY/AFP/Getty Images Video shows the burning Russian fighter jet plunging to earth after being shot down near the Turkish-Syrian border, in Hatay on November 24.
“If we allow our sovereign rights to be violated… then the territory would no longer be our territory”, he said.
Erdogan was also furious at reports Turkish businessmen have been detained for “visa irregularities”.
But Erdogan insists Putin should say sorry for flying into his air space.
China’s Foreign Ministry called for calm on Friday (Nov 27) over growing tensions about Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian warplane, urging the global community to coordinate in the fight against terror to avoid such incidents.
Hardline leader Erdogan had previously warned Russian Federation was “playing with fire” after the country threatened Turkey with economic sanctions. Hollande agreed, calling the plane incident a “serious incident, obviously regrettable”, though adding that the matter should be used to “strengthen the coordination between the countries”, according to the AP.
He said, “Russia is welcomed to be part of this broad-based coalition against ISIS”.
The Kremlin’s press service said Putin had also instructed the government to “define a list of goods and services to which the economic measures against (Ankara) do not apply”.
Earlier, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow expected Turkey and other countries to respect the inviolability of marine traffic through the Black Sea straits as laid out in the Montreux Convention.
Fatih Oke, a spokesperson for the Turkish embassy in Washington, said that Turkey is Russia’s number one tourism destination.
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Erdogan expressed his hopes that the two could meet at the United Nations climate change summit which starts in Paris on Monday.
