Russian Federation ends accord with Turkish military after warplane shot down

Turkey is hoping Russia will “cool down” in their spat over a downed Russian warplane, which was shot out of the sky near the Syrian-Turkish border earlier this week.

“We very sincerely recommend to Russian Federation not to play with fire”, Turkish President Recep Erdogan told supporters in northeast Turkey on Friday. The hapless “Erdogan” was made of straw, and identifiable by a print-out photograph attached to its head.

“We need to talk about what happened”, Erdogan said.

Russia has announced a series of economic and military measures to retaliate against Turkey’s downing of a Russian bomber jet.

The incident marked the first time in half a century that a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member shot down a Russian plane, raising the threat of a military confrontation between the alliance and Moscow. “I think this is the essence”, CNN quoted him as saying.

Putin has also ordered the deployment of the long-range air defence missile systems to a Russian air base in Syria just 30 miles south of the border with Turkey to help protect Russian warplanes.

The spat reflected a clash of ambitions of two strongman leaders, neither of whom appeared willing to back down and search for a compromise.

The Russian top diplomat warned that the incident could seriously undermine Turkey’s interests both inside the country and in the Middle East. Russia, which has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria since September, said the jet did not cross into Turkey. Those instructions were a separate issue to disagreements with Russian Federation over Syria policy, he said, adding Ankara would continue to support moderate rebels in Syria and Turkmen fighters battling President Assad’s forces.

“We believe that the Turkish leadership has crossed the line of what is acceptable”, said Lavrov said during a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Muallem in Moscow.

Russia’s lower house speaker, Sergei Naryshkin, said on Friday that Moscow had the right to make a military response, calling the incident an “intentional murder of our soldiers”.

Turkey, which has long sought Assad’s ouster, said that Turkey did not go looking to shoot down a Russian jet but acted after it strayed into Turkish air space.