Turkish foreign minister conveys condolences to Russian Federation over pilot’s death

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has made a call to Russia for “economic cooperation” instead of imposing “economic embargoes”, in the latest move to ease tensions over the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey late last month.

Following the meeting, media reports have quoted Mevlut Cavusoglu saying as “we have expressed deep sadness and condolences to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for death of their pilot”.

“Russia is Turkey’s biggest natural gas supplier but it is not the only one”, Erdogan said while addressing the Turkey Innovation Week in Istanbul.

The Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) on Thursday said that satellite photos presented by Russia’s Defense Ministry this week showing Islamic State militants selling oil to Turkey were in fact images of Kurdish trucks, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey met on Thursday, the first high-level, bilateral face-to-face contact since the Turkish airforce shot down a Russian jet nine days ago, but there was no immediate word on the outcome of their talks. Another Russian serviceman was killed in the rescue operation.

“It’s important to keep the channels of dialogue open”, he said. “I am sure that common sense will win over emotion”.

Moscow has announced a series of economic sanctions on trade with Turkey and President Putin has accused Turkey of involvement in oil deals with ISIL. “Our hope is that they will give up their baseless claims”.

Cavusoglu said: “We are at a point where we do not want to be right now”.

In comments broadcast on Russian television, Lavrov also confirmed that there had been no breakthrough. Davutoglu said in the joint press conference that the two countries would do “whatever is needed for the TANAP project”, to finish ahead of schedule.