Angry Russia calls off talks with Turkey

Moscow, November 24

President Vladimir Putin called Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet a stab in the back administered by "the accomplices of terrorists," saying the incident would have serious consequences for Moscow's relations with Ankara.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm at the incident and hoped that all countries involved in air campaigns in Syria would take steps to avoid such incidents in the future.

The fallout of the downing of the jet came immediately as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cancelled a visit to Turkey for talks with his counterpart.  "The decision has been taken to cancel the meeting that was planned for tomorrow in Istanbul between the foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey,” Lavrov said in televised comments. 

Besides, Russia's state tourism agency Rostourism recommended  suspending sales of tour packages to Turkey, RIA news agency reported.

Speaking in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday before a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, Putin said the downed plane had been attacked inside Syria when it was 1 km (0.62 miles) from the Turkish border and had come down 4 km (2.49 miles) inside Syria.

That contradicted Turkey's assertion that the aircraft had been warned multiple times that it was straying into Turkish airspace before it was shot down. "Today's loss is linked to a stab in the back delivered to us by accomplices of terrorists. I cannot qualify what happened today as anything else," said a visibly furious Putin.

"Our plane was shot down on Syrian territory by an air-to-air missile from an F-16. It fell on Syrian territory 4 km from the Turkish border. It was flying at 6,000 metres 1 kilometre from Turkish territory when it was attacked." Putin said Russian pilots and planes had in no way threatened Turkey, but had merely been carrying out their duty to fight Islamic State militants inside Syria.

"We established a long time ago that large quantities of oil and oil products from territory captured by Islamic State have been arriving on Turkish territory," he said, saying that was how militants had been funding themselves.

"And now we get stabbed in our back and our planes, which are fighting terrorism, are struck. This despite the fact that we signed an agreement with our American partners to warn each other about air-to-air incidents and Turkey ... announced it was allegedly fighting against terrorism as part of the US coalition." If Islamic State militants earned hundreds of millions of dollars from trading oil and enjoyed the protection of the armed forces "of entire governments" no wonder, said Putin, they behaved so boldly. "We will of course analyse everything that happened and today's tragic events will have serious consequences for Russo-Turkish relations," he said.

Turkey is one of the most popular holiday destinations for Russians, and the two countries enjoy active diplomatic relations.

Putin expressed anger at Turkey's decision to convene a meeting of NATO to discuss the incident, suggesting Ankara should instead have swiftly tried to contact Moscow. — Agencies