Syrian conflict | Russia confirms its jet shot down near Turkish border

This frame grab from video by Haberturk TV, shows a Russian warplane on fire before crashing on a hill as seen from Hatay province, Turkey

Turkey shot down a Russian warplane yesterday, claiming it had violated Turkish airspace and ignored repeated warnings. Russia denied that the plane crossed the Syrian border into Turkish skies.
“We are looking into the circumstances of the crash of the Russian jet,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said. “The Ministry of Defense would like to stress that the plane was over the Syrian territory throughout the flight.”
Russia said the Su-24 was downed by artillery fire, but Turkey claimed that its F-16s fired on the Russian plane after it ignored several warnings. The ministry said the pilots parachuted but added that Moscow had no further contact with them.
Video footage of the incident showed a warplane on fire before crashing on a hill and two crew members apparently parachuting safely.
Jahed Ahmad, a spokesman the 10th Coast Division, an insurgent group in Syria, said its forces fired at the Russian pilots as they descended. One was dead when he reached the ground, Ahmad told The Associated Press.
The group released a video showing gunmen standing around a blond man in aviator gear whose face was bruised and appeared dead.
The fate of the second pilot was unknown.
The North Atlantic Council, NATO’s governing body, called a meeting requested by Turkey, an alliance member. “The aim of this extraordinary NAC meeting is for Turkey to inform allies about the downing of a Russian airplane,” said Carmen Romero, NATO’s deputy spokesperson.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said nothing about the incident at a ceremony approving the list a new cabinet members.
Turkey’s private Dogan news agency said two Russian helicopters, flying low over the Turkmen Bayirbucak region, searched for the two pilots.
“This isn’t an action against any specific country. Our F-16s took the necessary steps to defend Turkey’s sovereign territory,” a Turkish official said in an email. The official cannot be named because of government rules that bar civil servants from speaking to journalists without authorization.
The official said the Russian plane was first warned that it was within 15 kilometers of the Turkish border, and the aircraft then crossed over Turkish territory.
Turkish officials released what they said was the radar image of the path the Russian plane took, showing it flying across a stretch of Turkish territory in Turkey’s southern-most tip, in the region of Yayladag, in Hatay province.
A Turkish military statement said the plane entered Turkish airspace over the town of Yayladagi, in Hatay province.
“On Nov. 24, 2015 at around 09.20 a.m., a plane whose nationality is not known violated the Turkish airspace despite several warnings (10 times within five minutes) in the area of Yayladagi, Hatay,” the military said before the plane’s nationality was confirmed.
“Two F-16 planes on aerial patrol duty in the area intervened against the plane in question in accordance with the rules of engagement at 09.24 a.m.”
It said the plane was warned 10 times within the space of five minutes.
“It’s the kind of thing we’re been warning about,” said Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network think-tank in London. “And it’s a direct military engagement between a NATO country and Russia, so I think it’s a serious incident in anybody’s book.” Susan Fraser and Nataliya Vasilyeva, Ankara, AP

russia responding cautiously to jet downing

Defense analysts say Russia seems to be responding cautiously to the downing of one of its warplanes on the Turkey-Syria border. Natasha Kuhrt, lecturer in International Peace and Security at King’s College London, said Russian television reports “have mainly been blaming the anti-Assad rebels inside Syria, and not mentioning Turkey at all. The general thrust is to try to play down this incident.” “Relations have been very strained between Russia and Turkey of late so Moscow will be trying its utmost to contain the damage this might cause,” she said. Shashank Joshi of defense think tank the Royal United Services Institute said the large number of nations in the air over Syria had led to a dangerous and unpredictable situation. He said there would intense diplomatic efforts to defuse the situation, but the combination of crowded airspace, Russian probing of Turkey’s border and diplomatic between Moscow and Istanbul created a “real toxic cocktail that can easily erupt into crisis.”