Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday, saying it had repeatedly violated its air space, one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a Nato member country and Russia for half a century.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the plane had been attacked when it was 1km inside Syria and warned of “serious consequences” for what he termed a stab in the back administered by “the accomplices of terrorists.”
“We will never tolerate such crimes like the one committed today,” Putin said, as Russian and Turkish shares fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies.
Each country summoned a diplomatic representative of the other and Nato called a meeting of its ambassadors for Tuesday afternoon. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cancelled a visit to Turkey due on Wednesday and the defence ministry said it was preparing measures to respond to such incidents.
Footage from private Turkish broadcaster Haberturk TV showed the warplane going down in flames, a long plume of smoke trailing behind it as it crashed in a wooded part of an area the TV said was known by Turks as “Turkmen Mountain.”
Separate footage from Turkey’s Anadolu Agency showed two pilots parachuting out of the jet before it crashed. A deputy commander of rebel Turkmen forces in Syria said his men shot both pilots dead as they came down.
The Turkish military said the aircraft had been warned 10 times in the space of five minutes about violating Turkish air space. Officials said a second plane had also approached the border and been warned.
“The data we have is very clear. There were two planes approaching our border, we warned them as they were getting too close,” a senior Turkish official said.
A second official said the incident was not an action against any specific country but a move to defend Turkey’s sovereign territory within its rules of engagement.
A US military spokesman said it was an issue between the Turkish and Russian governments and that US-led coalition operations in Syria and Iraq were continuing “as planned.”
A US official said US forces were not involved in the downing of the Russian jet, which was the first time a Russian or Soviet military aircraft has been publicly acknowledged to have been shot down by a Nato member since the 1950s.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was briefed by the head of the military, while Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was due to report on the incident to Nato ambassadors. He also informed the United Nations and related countries.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the warplane crashed in a mountainous area in the northern countryside of Latakia province, where there had been aerial bombardment earlier and where pro-government forces have been battling insurgents on the ground.
