“President Vladimir Putin and our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also have opportunity to meet”.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks to Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem during their talks in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Nov. 27, 2015. “Our positions are the same”, Putin told Hollande.
Moscow has also hinted the reprisals could hit two major projects with Turkey – a planned gas pipeline and a nuclear power plant.
Konashenkov added that Russia was denied access by Turkey to any material related to the downing of the Russian jet by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet.
But, the AP says, France and Russian Federation remain at odds in their approach toward Assad. Putin has so far refused to contact Erdogan because Ankara does not want to apologize for the downing of the jet, a Putin aide said.
“Air defense systems are in no way aimed against our partners, jointly with whom we are fighting terrorists in Syria”, Putin underscored while answering the question on deployment of S-400s in Syria. “Nobody can slander this country”, Erdogan said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “It is a too serious incident that serious consequences are unavoidable… and we are still waiting for realistic explanations from the Turkish side”, Peskov said.
“I think if there is a party that needs to apologise, it is not us”, he told CNN separately.
At least two large Russian tour operators had already said they would stop selling packages to Turkey after Russian officials advised holidaymakers against traveling to its resorts.
“Their desire not to lose face has the potential to weaken otherwise pragmatic calculations to contain the crisis”, said Anthony Skinner, director of political risk at Verisk Maplecroft consultancy.
He dismissed Putin’s criticism of the incident as “unacceptable”, noting that Russian planes had twice violated Turkish air space in October.
The crew ejected and one pilot was shot dead by rebels as he parachuted to the ground.
As a result of multiple air strikes conducted by Russian forces against terrorists, Syrian governmental forces took control of the mountainous regions in the north of Latakia province, thus fully blocking the cross-border arms and ammunition shipments to terrorists in the area, Konashenkov said during the briefing.
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Moscow says its military involvement in Syria is aimed at battling terrorist groups including Islamic State, casting the campaign to a supportive Russian public as a moral crusade that must be completed despite obstruction from elsewhere.
