Russia has given Turkey a full explanation on the incident with the Russian military aircrafts that violated the country’s airspace. This was reported by the Press Secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, on Tuesday, October 6, according to RIA “Novosti”. He expressed hope that the incident would not affect the implementation of the “Turkish Stream” projects.
“The relations between Russia and Turkey have very deep roots and very diverse formats, the base of their trade-economic and investment cooperation is strong” – Peskov noted.
On October 6 the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Russia that Moscow would lose a lot in case of a conflict with Ankara. He noted that the violation of the country’s borders by Russian aircrafts was not allowed. “The attack on Turkey is an attack on NATO”- the Turkish leader concluded. Earlier on the same day the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg doubted the official Russian version, according to which the invasion of the aircrafts in the Turkish airspace happened by mistake.
“I do not want to speculate about the motives, but it does not look like an accident, moreover there were two of them” - he noted. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused NATO of using the incident for beginning of information warfare.
On October 5 the Turkish General Staff said that on October 4 ten Turkish fighter aircrafts patrolling the border with Syria had met an unidentified MiG-29 which took two F-16 fighters in the sight of its radar. On the same day it became known that the Russian ambassador was called to the Turkish Foreign Ministry who expressed their protest against the violation of the air borders of Turkey. According to Ankara, on October 3 two F-16 planes of the Turkish Air Forces patrolling the region found a Russian plane near the city of Yayladağı in the southern province of Hatay which borders Syria. After interception it left the Turkish airspace in the direction of Syria.
The Russian embassy in Turkey has confirmed the fact of the incident. After that the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, explained the momentary violation of the Turkish airspace by Su-30 plane with bad weather conditions. He also said that the information about the meeting of Turkish aircrafts with an unidentified MiG-29 had nothing to do with the actions of the Russian air group in Syria.
Author: Anna Dorozhkina