Turkey shots down Russian jet for violating airspace

The news comes after Turkey scrambled F-16 fighter jets last weekend after a Russian MiG-29 crossed into Turkish territory near the town of Yayladagi, in Hatay province, close to the border with Syria.

Serkan Demirtas, Turkish analyst: “Turkey and Russian Federation have never been on the same page on the Syria issue”.

The former chief of MI6, Sir John Sawers, has warned there was a “real danger” of clashes between Russian and coalition warplanes if they mount rival operations in the skies over Syria.

Turkey has been complaining about harassment of its jets on border patrols for the past week. Russia’s ambassador in Turkey was also summoned in protest at the provocative action.

Turkey and Russia are important trade partners and Turkey is strongly dependent on Russian gas imports.

Tensions between Russian Federation and the West have been heightened since the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow is accused of backing the armed rebels in that country.

And after a meeting with his United States counterpart Ash Carter, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon yesterday said Russian air and missile strikes in support of president Bashar Assad risked making “a grave situation even worse”. But neither side has yet said whether rumours of another of Russia’s planes were shot down in a separate confrontation.

“If the Syrian opposition is weakened, this would strengthen Daesh”, Davutoglu said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic extremist group.

Turkish forces are said to have shot down a Russian jet after it flew into the country’s airspace, The Daily Mail said quoting unconfirmed reports on social media.

This article was written by Suzan Fraser from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.