Davutoglu made the comments to members of his ruling AK Party in parliament. “Russian leaders should imagine something like this: if we had bombed places in eastern Ukraine which had kinship relations with Russia, like the kinship relation we have with the Bayırbucak Turkmens, by agreeing to a call by the state of Ukraine by also violating Russianairspace, exactly as Russia claims that it agreed to a call by the state of Syria, I wonder what would Putin think and do”, he said. According to observers, Russia’s suspension of the project was a tactical and preemptive move so as not to give Turkey the opportunity to suspend the project itself in retaliation for Moscow’s punitive measures.
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“If we find it necessary, we will introduce retaliatory sanctions, this issue was discussed at a government meeting on Monday”.
Russian-Turkish tensions have escalated following Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane near its border with Syria last month. The incident has plunged bilateral relations to a historic low since the end of the Cold War and is threatening to degenerate into a broader confrontation in the regional theater.
“We will meet with the Turkish minister of foreign affairs, we will hear what he has to say”, Mr Lavrov said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart.
Turkey on Monday summoned Russia’s ambassador to Ankara over images of a Russian serviceman brandishing a rocket launcher as his warship navigated through Turkish waters, foreign ministry sources said. “Such measures will have its toll on both economies and Russian people will suffer as much as Turkish people”, he added. Turkey has rejected numerous Russian demands to apologize for the incident, saying it did nothing wrong.
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Putin thanked everyone who participated in the operation to search for and retrieve the black box from Russia’s Su-24, which was shot down on November 24 by the Turkish Air Force. The Boeing-built air superiority fighters were originally deployed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation base-which is relatively close to the Syrian border in Adana-because of increased Russian air activity near the border.
