American Secretary of State John Kerry told media sources that the US was quite concerned about the Russian violation of Turkish airspace.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, a statement released on Monday from the Turkish General Staff Headquarters revealed that an unidentified MIG-29 jet had harassed two Turkish F-16s on patrol along the Syrian border, maintaining a radar lock for a full 5 minutes and 40 seconds.
The foreign ministry said it had summoned Moscow’s ambassador to protest the violation and urged Russian Federation against any repeat, warning that it would be held “responsible for any undesired incident that may occur”.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the Russian plane entered its airspace south of the Hatay region, near its border with Syria. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the Russian ambassador had been summoned and said “some facts were mentioned there which are to be checked”, but gave no further details.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had earlier dismissed the European Union funding idea, saying that Turkey was not prepared to be a “concentration camp” for refugees.
While the Turkish military is not directly involved in the Syrian conflict, they are now allowing USA coalition warplanes to use an airbase near the Syrian boarder.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said that according to the plan, Turkey would be obliged to better protect its border with Greece – a frontier that many migrants have crossed on perilous boat journeys.
Erdogan blamed “not only Russia” but also Iran, which was defending Assad and “waging state terrorism” in Syria.
But the US says that peace in Syria can only be achieved if Assad leaves office.
An activist group said Saturday that the Russian air raids have killed 39 civilians.
Turkey has welcomed Syrian refugees since the beginning of the civil war in March 2011 and is now hosting around two million people under temporary protection regulations. The picture reads both in Turkish and Russian: “Murderer Putin“.
A day after the incident involving the Russian jet became public President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, clearly frustrated, slammed Russia’s involvement in Syria as a “grave mistake” as well as “quite unacceptable” and “worrying and disturbing”.
Advertisement
Tusk said he and Erdogan also discussed “the urgent need” to end the more than four-year-old war in Syria which has claimed a few 250,000 lives and displaced half the country’s population.
