The pilots of the downed Su-24 ejected, but one was killed by Syrian rebel fire from the ground as he parachuted to Earth, said the Russian general staff, insisting the Russian jet had been in Syrian airspace at the time. Along with a second plane, the aircraft had flown more than a mile into Turkey for 17 seconds, despite being warned 10 times in five minutes while approaching to change direction, the letter said. “But everyone should respect the right of Turkey to defend its borders”, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.
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“Nobody should doubt that we made our best efforts to avoid this latest incident”. The Turkish lira dropped 0.9 per cent against the U.S. dollar, and the Istanbul equity market lost 1.6 per cent. Russian stocks fell, having risen sharply the day before, while the rouble was flat.
Before Tuesday’s incident, Russia and the West appeared to be moving toward an understanding of their common strategic goal of eradicating IS, which gained momentum after the November 13 attacks in Paris, as well as the October 31 bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai desert.
“We urge both leaders, both countries, to exercise restraint with respect of this”, he said, appealing to the two countries to not make the situation worse. But capitals are bracing for Moscow to retaliate, either through economic measures or by further attacks on Turkish-allied opposition groups in Syria.
Following the incident on Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry announced that it is suspending its military cooperation with Turkey and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cancelled a planned trip to Turkey on Wednesday.
Earlier, several parts of the rural northern Latakia region were being shelled from the air during clashes involving regime forces and loyalist militia on one side and rebels and Islamist divisions on the other.
In Russian Federation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov just said “there is no official information” about the fate of the pilots from the downed plane.
Syrian forces backed by Russian warplanes have been fighting local Turkmen militia in the area for at least the past week, according to local activists.
Turkey called this week for a United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss attacks on Turkmens in neighbouring Syria, and last week Ankara summoned the Russian ambassador to protest against the bombing of their villages.
The area referred to by the news agency is in southern Turkey, close to the Syrian border.
He accused North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey of being an “accomplice” of Islamic State extremists and playing an ambiguous role in Syria’s civil war.
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Both Russian Federation and its ally, Syria’s government, have carried out strikes in the area where the plane came down.
