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389058
Thu, 11/26/2015 - 09:34
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Russia plans no war with Turkey - Lavrov

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Russia is not going to start a war against Turkey following the downing of the Sukhoi Su-24 bomber, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday. "We are not planning to wage a war against Turkey, our attitude towards the Turkish people has not changed," the minister said. "We have questions only to the Turkish leadership." The minister said the Russian side has always tried to "organize practical and pragmatic relations with our Turkish neighbors, including in the context of the Syrian crisis, especially now that we started the Aerospace Forces’ operation in the Syrian Arab Republic on a request from official Damascus." "The president specially underscored yesterday that we have always tried to treat the regional interests of our neighbors with respect, including Turkey’s regional interests," Lavrov said. "Now probably many things of what we are saying now should not be a secret, regarding how terrorists use Turkish territory to prepare their operations in Syria, to prepare terrorist acts in different countries, regarding efforts or lack of efforts on the part of official authorities to fight that," he said. "These facts were long known to everyone. We did actually not try to turn a blind eye to them, but we were constantly trying to take into account the legitimate interests of our Turkish neighbors and were trying to openly explain our policy in trust-based dialogue with them," Lavrov said. "We were trying to persuade them to conduct a more well-reasoned policy, not focused only on deposition of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad by any means and stipulating in this connection allied relations with any extremist groups," he said. "We have never made public this work at any levels. We have never voiced any negative assessments of the Turkish leadership’s actions," Lavrov said. "We have always called for search for constructive joint actions both in the bilateral context and in the context of multilateral efforts to settle the Syrian crisis, to fight terrorism," he said. "Unfortunately, Ankara has not reciprocated," Lavrov said. He said that even before the actions of Russia’s Aerospace Forces in Syria, Ankara’s assessments of the Russian Federation’s policy in the Syrian crisis were "improper for an official presentation by the Turkish Republic’s top leaders." A Sukhoi Su-24 bomber of Russia’s Aerospace Forces was on Tuesday downed by an air-to-air missile fired by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet when the Russian plane was at an altitude of 6,000 meters 1 kilometer from Turkey’s border. Later the Russian Defense Ministry specified that the Su-24 was downed when it was returning to the Khmeimim airbase in Syria. "Objective control data analysis unambiguously showed that there was no violation of Turkey’s airspace," the ministry said. However, Turkey’s General Staff claims that the Turkish fighter jet shot down a plane that violated the country’s airspace. A statement circulated by the Turkish military says the plane’s crew received 10 warnings for five minutes. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with King of Jordan Abdullah II on Tuesday that Ankara’s attack against the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 plane, which took part in Russia’s antiterrorism operation in Syria and did not present a threat to Turkey, was a "stab in Russia’s back" delivered by terrorists’ accomplices. Russia’s Aerospace Forces started delivering pinpoint strikes in Syria at facilities of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist organizations, which are banned in Russia, on September 30, 2015, on a request from Syrian President Bashar Assad. The air group comprises over 50 aircraft and helicopters, including Sukhoi Su-24M, Su-25SM and state-of-the-art Su-34 aircraft. They were redeployed to the Khmeimim airbase in the province of Latakia. On October 7, four missile ships of the Russian Navy’s Caspian Flotilla fired 26 Kalibr cruise missiles (NATO codename Sizzler) at militants’ facilities in Syria. On October 8, the Syrian army passed to a large-scale offensive. Over 2,000 terrorist facilities have been destroyed by Russian aircraft since the start of the air operation. The Russian Federation does not plan to take part in ground operations in Syria. According to UN statistics, fighting between Syrian government troops and militants has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions since its start in 2011. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently gave instructions to intensify strikes delivered by Russian aircraft in Syria after Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov reported that the crash of Russia’s A321 airliner above the Sinai Peninsula on October 31 was caused by a terrorist act carried out with the help of a homemade explosive device. A total of 224 people were killed, making the air crash the largest in the history of domestic aviation. Following the tragedy, Russia suspended flights to Egypt. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin November 17 that Russia has involved strategic and long-range aircraft in strikes against the Islamic State in Syria. Read more

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