Moscow Cancels Russia-Turkey Summit Planned for December: Reports
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Moscow has decided to cancel an intergovernmental Russia-Turkey meeting, planned for December, in view of the downing of the Russian Su-24 aircraft, the Kommersant newspaper reports.
A Russian-Turkish intergovernmental commission was planning to meet in St. Petersburg on December 15. The meeting was agreed upon by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the November 15-16 G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey.
"Russian authorities have made a decision not to hold the Russia-Turkey summit in St. Petersburg, which had been planned for mid-December," the Russian daily said on Thursday, citing a Kremlin source, as reported by Sputnik News.
On Tuesday, a Russian Su-24 jet crashed in Syria. The plane was downed by an air-to-air missile launched by a Turkish F-16 jet over Syrian territory, falling 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Turkish border.
Putin described the Turkish attack as a "stab in the back" carried out by "accomplices of terrorists." Ankara claimed that it downed the Russian airplane because it violated Turkish airspace.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the holding of the December Russia-Turkey summit depended on a number of factors, but its cancellation had not been discussed.
