Warplanes believed to be Russian carried out several air strikes on a Syrian town near the Turkish border on Friday, a monitoring group said, one of several reported close to the boundary this week. “It gives an impression that the Turkish leadership is deliberately driving Russian-Turkish relations into a deadlock, and we regret that”.
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Earlier, Russia threatened economic retaliation against Turkey and said it was still awaiting a reasonable explanation for the shooting down of its warplane, but Turkey dismissed the threats as “emotional” and “unfitting”.
In Paris, Mr Putin is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the Syrian crisis and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Erdogan denied Ankara was collaborating with the Islamic State and again denied claims that Turkey had bought any oil from the Islamic State group.
In a speech broadcast live on Turkish television, Mr Erdogan said he may attempt to arrange a meeting with Mr Putin at next week’s global climate summit in France.
However Putin said he would order Russia’s military to bolster its cooperation with French forces – including exchanging information about targets.
Turkish officials said the jet ignored repeated warnings and crossed into its airspace from Syria, where Putin’s planes are bombing enemies of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad.
“We need to take the lead so that there can be actions against terrorism that must be intensified”, Hollande told Putin at the start of their talks at the Kremlin.
Obama and Putin met on November 15 to discuss the Paris attacks. The Turkish foreign ministry said diplomatic missions and Turkish business interests in Russian Federation had come under attack and said Russia’s ambassador in Ankara had been summoned in protest. “We are disturbed that the issue has been escalated”. The Turkish side has refused to hand the Russian military attache any materials on the incident, the ministry said.
The spat reflected a clash of ambitions of two strongman leaders, neither of whom appeared willing to back down and search for a compromise.
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“He asked us to draw up a map of forces that are not terrorists and are fighting Daesh (Isis)”. “But it may be something they’ll be looking for down the line”, says Maynes.
