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Kerry in Moscow for talks on Syria, Ukraine; to meet Putin

The incident happened after Turkey last month downed a Russian bomber at the Syrian border, leading to the biggest crisis in ties between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.

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Speaking about the death of one of the two pilots flying the Russian Su-24 warplane that got downed by Turkish fighter jets on November 24, Karlov claimed the person who shot the Russian pilot after he ejected himself from the plane and was trying to make a safe landing with a parachute was a Turkish citizen named Alparslan Çelik.

Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov summoned the Turkish Embassy’s military attache in Moscow over the incident, the statement said. The Russian President also disregarded a meeting with Erdogan during the Climate Change summit in France last month.

A Russian warship fired warning shots at a Turkish fishing boat in the Aegean Sea, ostensibly to avoid a possible collision. A US diplomat in Paris, who demanded anonymity to debate the talks, stated a gathering in Geneva on Friday. between Russian & American diplomats on Syria was aimed mainly at clearing up Russian “grievances” ahead of Tues.’s Moscow meeting. We didn’t even know that it was a Russian ship, we thought it was a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ship.

As Russia continues to accuse Turkey and its presidential family of directly benefitting from the trade in oil with the Islamic State, it transpires that the oil tankers allegedly involved in the illicit business are registered in Malta and all fly the Maltese flag. A statement from the Russian military leadership reportedly said that the Smetlivy tried repeatedly to alert the Turkish fishing vessel that they were in danger of a collision.

Russian Federation also imposed a visa regime on Turkey effective January 1. “It seems to me that the reaction of the Russian naval ship was exaggerated”, Mr Mevlut Cavusoglu told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad in western Syria denied receiving any support from the Russian air force, saying that on the contrary it continued to bomb them and rejecting comments by a top Russian general on Monday.

Cavusoglu further questions Russia’s real motives in the fight against Islamic State, claiming just 8 percent of the Russian airstrikes have targeted ISIS, while 92 percent have been against other groups hostile to Assad. He said “no one believed” Putin’s allegations.

“Regrettably, Russia does not struggle against terrorists in Syria”.

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“They saw them in gathered in the hundreds so certainly it was an opportunity for them to target them, but not through an agreement with us”, he told Reuters, adding that his group’s critics were now saying they are receiving Russian support.

Russian President Vladimir Putin center Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov left and US Secretary of State John Kerry