“But if someone thinks that after committing heinous war crimes, the murder of our people, it will end with tomatoes and limitations in construction and other fields, then they are deeply mistaken”, Putin said. He suggested for the first time, however, that the plane was brought down because Turkey could not “morally” allow the plane to trespass on Turkish territory before bombing areas in Syria where ethnic Turkish populations live.
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Turkey says the Russian jet violated its airspace and that it was repeatedly warned, something Russia has denied. “Russian Federation has no proof of any oil transactions between Turkey, the Kurdish region, and the Islamic State”, he said, referring to IS by another name.
The militants shot and killed the downed plane’s pilot while he was descending on parachute and also killed a Russian marine involved in rescuing the plane’s co-pilot.
With tensions riding high between Moscow and Ankara following Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border on November 24, Davutoglu said Turkey respects state borders of all the countries and demands everyone to demonstrate the same respect to its borders. In particular, Russian Federation has prohibited the import of some products from Turkey, including poultry offal and certain fruit and vegetables, effective from January 2016.
Turkey has agreed with Azerbaijan to accelerate the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), with an aim to have the gas project completed before the planned 2018, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on December 3, as quoted by Reuters.
Meanwhile Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier on Thursday vowed never to forget Turkey’s downing of one of Moscow’s warplanes, as he lashed out once again at the leadership in Ankara over the incident.
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“It’s important to keep the channels of dialogue open”, he said.
