Friday 27 November 2015

Putin insists Turkey knew the downed plane was Russian

                                                                                                        (C)BBC

Russia has rejected Turkey's claims that it did not know the plane it shot down on the Syria border was Russian. According to BBC, President Vladimir Putin said Russian planes were easily identifiable and the jet's flight co-ordinates had been passed on to Turkey's ally, the US. Turkey's president said earlier if it had known the plane was Russian "maybe we would have warned it differently".
Russia and France have agreed to co-operate more closely in fighting terrorism in Syria. The two countries will exchange intelligence on Islamic State - and co-ordinate air strikes. But differences remain over the fate of the Syrian leader. President Hollande made it clear that Bashar al-Assad could play no role in his country's future. President Putin said that was up to the Syrian people to decide. And there is no sign of the kind of "grand coalition" against terror that France had been calling for, one that would include America.


President Vladimir Putin of Russia

Speaking at a news conference after the talks, President Putin even suggested that Turkey had shot down the Russian bomber this week after receiving information about its location from the US. Two Russian servicemen died after the Russian SU-24 plane crashed into a mountainside on Syrian soil on Tuesday after being hit by a missile from a Turkish F-16 fighter jet. The Turkish military said it sent several warnings to the jet before firing, some 17 seconds after the plane entered Turkish air space. A surviving Russian pilot said he had received no such warning and was adamant they did not stray out of Syrian air space.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected calls by Russia to apologise, saying Turkey does not need to say sorry for the violation of its airspace. However, he told France 24 television: "If we had known it was a Russian plane, maybe we would have warned it differently".
But Mr Putin insisted it was "impossible" for Turkey not to have known it was shooting at a Russian plane. "It's got insignia, and you can see that very clearly".
He went on: "In advance, in accordance with our agreement with the US, we gave information on where our planes would be working - at what altitude, and in what areas. Turkey is part of that coalition and they had to know it was the Russian airforce working in that area.
"If it was an American aircraft, would they have struck?"
Mr Putin told the news conference he was ready to co-operate more closely with the US-led coalition "but of course incidents like the destruction of our aircraft and the deaths of our servicemen... are absolutely unacceptable".

Source: BBC

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