It was the first expression of regret by the leader since Tuesday’s incident, in which Turkish F-16 jets shot down the Russian plane on grounds that it had violated Turkey’s airspace despite repeated warnings to change course.
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“Striking opposition that is acknowledged as legitimate by the worldwide community, with the pretense of striking ISIS, is playing with fire”, said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish President. “Instead of ensuring this never happens again, we are hearing unintelligible explanations”. “I really hope this will not happen again”, Erdogan stated.
World leaders have urged the two sides to lower tensions, with many expressing concern that it could harm efforts to fight the Islamic State group and derail a fresh diplomatic push to broker a Syria peace deal.
“We have seen that our citizens are facing problems in their travels and residences in Russian Federation since November 24 over recent developments in relations between Turkey and Russian Federation”, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said non-urgent visits to the country should be avoided “until the situation becomes clear”.
A tug-of-war over a Russian warplane downed by a Turkish fighter jet at the border with Syria escalated Thursday, with Moscow drafting a slew of economic sanctions against Turkey and the Turkish president defiantly declaring that his military will shoot down any new intruder.
Russian Federation is preparing a broad swath of economic sanctions against Turkey and has restricted tourist travel into the nation in response to the plane’s downing.
Earlier on Friday, Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov had said the Russian head of state had refused to contact Erdogan, Press TV reported.
Putin said that Turkey’s claim it would not have targeted the Su-24 if it had known it was Russian was “rubbish”.
Davutoglu said that with different coalitions operating in Syria with differing objectives, similar incidents to that of the downing of the Russian jet could happen unless there was information sharing and coordination. The almost five-year-old Syrian civil war has been complicated by Russian air strikes in defence of President Bashar al-Assad. Peskov said Putin was aware of a Turkish request for him to meet Erdogan on the sidelines of the Paris conference but gave no indication of whether such a meeting would take place.
Turkey says the Russian plane had intruded into its airspace and ignored warnings to leave.
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Both Russia and Turkey have taken part in air raids in Syria.
