Turkey Expresses Condolences to Russian Federation over Death of Pilot

Kerry was scheduled to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, but it was not clear when Lavrov would talk to his Turkey counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu during the two-day gathering in Belgrade.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has challenged Putin and said he will step down if Russian claims that Turkey buys oil from Daesh are proven.

Speaking in Baku, Davutoglu said Turkey and Azerbaijan had agreed to complete the project before the original target date of mid-2018.

Touching upon the recent sanctions Russian Federation announced on Turkish goods and a ban on reciprocal flights, Davutoglu said they believed embargoes will serve no side and can never “bring Turkey to heel”. “We would not apologize for defending our borders”.

The Turkish premier said Turkey aimed to increase energy cooperation with Azerbaijan but stressed these efforts were independent of the spat with Russian Federation.

On Saturday, Putin slapped a set of sanctions on Turkey in response to Ankara’s refusal to make any apology for the incident.

The meeting would mark the two countries’ first high-level face-to-face talks since the downing of the Russian plane on November 24 along Turkey’s border with Syria, which has badly strained relations between Ankara and Moscow. Russia also scrapped talks with Turkey on building a pipeline to export Russian natural gas to Europe. The militants shot and killed the downed plane’s pilot while he was descending on parachute and also killed a Russian marine involved in rescuing the plane’s co-pilot. For the first time, however, the leader suggested that the country could not morally allow aircraft to trespass into Turkish territory before bombing Syria, where Turkish people live as well. “Moreover, there were no insignia on it”, Davutoglu said.