(Turkish Military, via AP).
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Moscow said earlier in the day that it would ban mainly imports of agricultural products from Turkey after the Turkish military downed a Russian warplane on November 24 which Ankara said had breached Turkish airspace while flying missions in Syria.
The pilot, Lt. Col. Oleg Peshkov, was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation posthumously.
The shooting down of the Russian fighter jet by NATO-member Turkey, the first known incident of its kind since the Cold War, has damaged efforts to forge a united front against Islamic State in the weeks since militants claimed responsibility for mass killings in Paris and blowing up a Russian airliner.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutgolu said on Sunday that Peshkov’s body had arrived in Turkey overnight, but gave no further details of how it was recovered or brought across the border.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had refused to apologise to Russian Federation over the incident.
US President Barack Obama pushed Monday for a “de-escalation” of a furious war of words over Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane, a White House official said. One of the Russian pilots was killed, while a second was rescued.
The Russian air force said Monday that its Su-34 fighter bombers in Syria were now armed with air-to-air missiles for defense. While it says it is also targeting Islamic State, most of its air strikes have been against other Assad opponents, including groups actively supported by Turkey.
Obama told Putin he believes Assad must leave power as part of a that transition, and both leaders said their foreign ministers will continue to work on the diplomatic process, the official added.
Douglas Lute, the USA ambassador to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, said he saw American data which “corroborates Turkey’s version of events”.
The measures come two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree ordering sanctions against Turkey and calling for imports to be restricted, although he did not specify which goods were to be banned.
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The measures also call for ending chartered flights from Russia to Turkey and for Russian tourism companies to stop selling vacation packages that would include a stay in Turkey.
