By denying the Russian surveillance flight access to airspace along the Turkey-Syria border, Moscow claims that Ankara has violated an worldwide treaty known as Open Skies.
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The Association of International Truckers said in a statement on its website that Turkey refused to renew an agreement allowing Russian truckers to bring goods into Turkey.
“The Russian Defence Ministry regards these actions of the Turkish party as a unsafe precedent and an attempt to hide the illegal military activity near the Syrian border”, the statement said.
Russia’s defence ministry on Wednesday accused Turkey of breaching the Open Skies treaty by refusing to allow a reconnaissance plane to overfly its territory near Syria, the latest salvo in an ongoing row as relations between the two countries hits a post-Cold War low. The Russian Defense Ministry said it had pre-approved the flight, which would have been Russia’s first Open Skies mission in 2016, but Turkey at the last minute denied the Russian aircraft access.
Tensions between the governments in Moscow and Ankara have mounted since Turkish jets shot down a Russian bomber near the Syrian border in November.
“A Russian military advisor in Syria was carrying tasks of helping the Syrian army familiarize itself with the new weapons supplied within the framework of acting intergovernmental contracts on military-technical cooperation”, the ministry said.
“But the flight plan requested (by Russia) was a horizontal route along the Syrian border, which also extends up to Hatay”, he added.
Turkey, which has the second largest military in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization behind the United States, began heavy deployments on the Syrian border in 2012, after the downing of a Turkish jet by Syrian forces in June that year. It establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its 34 member states, including Russian Federation and Turkey.
Already, Russia’s air strikes in support of Assad’s forces have shifted the balance of power in the conflict which has angered Turkish strongman leader Tayyip Erdogan who wants to be the boss in his own back yard.
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Russian jets have been striking rebel and jihadi fighters for four months in Syria, including Islamic State militants as well as fighters backed by Turkey and Gulf Arab states, angering the Turkish government.
