Turkey’s Erdogan seeks Paris meeting with Putin

He told CNN Russia, not Turkey, should be the one to apologise for the incident.

Relations between Russia and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey have deteriorated sharply since Turkish forces downed a Russian warplane on Tuesday and Moscow has warned of “serious consequences” for economic ties.

“What we agreed, and this is important, is to strike only terrorists and Daesh (Islamic State) and to not strike forces that are fighting terrorism”.

Mr Erdogan previously said Turkey had not specifically targeted Russian Federation when it shot down the plane in “an automatic response” in line with its rules of engagement, and suggested the military may have acted differently had it known where the jet was from.

“There is no question mark here”.

Putin called Turkey’s downing of the plane a “stab in the back” from a country that Russian Federation considered a friend.

Putin said he was open to closer cooperation with both France and the U.S.-led coalition on selecting targets in Syria.

Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Mr Putin, said the Kremlin had received a request from Ankara regarding a possible meeting between the two leaders at the summit, and that the Russian president would be informed about it later on Friday. Fabius said Putin agreed on the need to focus global efforts against the extremist group and France is drawing up a map of other, moderate groups, to protect them from warplanes.

Russian Federation has also advised its nationals against visiting Turkey, and urged those already there to return home “due to the terrorist threats that remain on Turkish territory”.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks in Paris, as well as deadly bombings in Beirut and the downing of a Russian airplane on October 31 that killed all 224 people on board over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Putin also said on the same day that Ankara continues to offer “unintelligible explanations and statements” instead of apologizing and making sure such incidents would not happen again.

In a speech to supporters in northeast Turkey, Erdogan said: “It is playing with fire to go as far as mistreating our citizens who have gone to Russian Federation”.

He also said Turkey had not given assurances that “the culprits of the crime” will be punished.