Erdogan Says Turkey Does Not Want Escalation with Russia
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said Turkey did not want any escalation with Russia over its downing of a Russian plane on the Syrian frontier but vowed to always defend Turkish borders.
"We have no intention to escalate this incident. We are just defending our security and the rights of our brothers," Erdogan claimed in a televised speech in Istanbul, AFP reported.
"Turkey has never favoured tensions and crisis, it has and will always favour peace and dialogue," said Erdogan.
But he added: "No one should expect us to remain silent when our border security and our sovereignty are being violated."
Turkey said it shot down the Russian warplane after it repeatedly violated air space above the Turkish border. Moscow however insists that the plane never strayed from Syrian air space.
Earlier, the US said it believed that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said that assessment was based on detection of the heat signature of the jet.
Erdogan said that the incident early on Tuesday showed "what kind of consequences careless steps could have".
He claimed that two Turkish citizens were wounded by pieces of the Russian plane that fell on the Turkish side of the border.
The president dismissed statements by Russian officials that the plane had been on an anti-terror mission against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in northern Syria, saying that the area was populated by Syria's Turkmen minority.
"No one should ever fool themselves: There are no Daesh (ISIL) elements in the Bayirbucak region where Turkmen live," Erdogan claimed.
