A woman, left, holds a poster reading ‘Turkey to account!’ as others wave Russian and Syrian national flags during a picket at the Turkish Embassy in Moscow
Russia began trade retaliation against Turkey for downing one of its warplanes over Syria as President Vladimir Putin prepared to hold talks with French leader Francois Hollande on combating Islamic State militants.
Agricultural products from Turkey will be subjected to additional border checks and laboratory controls after 15 percent of goods were found to breach Russian requirements, Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The clampdown follows complaints from customers and industry groups about “repeated violations of Russian standards by Turkish producers,” Tkachev said.
The announcement came as Hollande was due in Moscow yesterday to advance his proposal for an alliance with Russia and the U.S. against Islamic State. Russia said Turkey may have planned the shooting down Tuesday of its aircraft, which Putin called “a stab in the back from accomplices of terrorism.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “we certainly don’t have any idea to escalate this issue” as he maintained that the jet was shot down after failing to heed multiple warnings and crossing into his nation’s airspace.
While Putin has ruled out military retaliation against Turkey, a NATO member, the first direct clash between foreign powers embroiled in the Syrian civil war has highlighted dangers the conflict could spiral into a broader one since Russia began air attacks there Sept. 30 in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
Hollande’s mission to Moscow has been complicated by the plane incident as he seeks to unite forces against Islamic State following the terrorist attacks in Paris Nov. 13 that killed 130 people. He said at talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday that he’ll press Putin to refocus strikes on Islamic State.
The U.S. embassy in Moscow said yesterday that Russia’s decision to deploy an S-400 air-defense system to protect aircraft at the base its forces use in Syria’s Latakia complicates the situation, according to the Interfax news service. Islamic State doesn’t have an air force and the embassy said it hoped the anti-aircraft system won’t target the U.S.-led coalition that’s also bombing Islamic State in Syria, Interfax reported. Selcan Hacaoglu, Ilya Arkhipov and Helena Bedwell, Bloomberg
Cameron: UK must attack is in Syria to deny group safe haven
Prime Minister David Cameron says Britain owes it to allies France and the United States to join airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria. Cameron is trying to persuade reluctant lawmakers to back action, arguing that the Paris attacks have given new urgency to the fight against IS. He told the House of Commons that U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande had urged Britain to join the military campaign. “These are our closest allies and they want our help,” he said. Cameron said if Britain didn’t act after IS-claimed attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, the U.K.’s allies might well ask, “if not now, when?” The Royal Air Force is part of a U.S.-led coalition attacking the militants in Iraq, but not in Syria.
Turkey releases recording of warnings to Russian plane
Turkey released audio recordings of what it says are the Turkish military’s warnings to the pilot of the Russian plane that was shot down at the border with Syria.
The recordings, made available to The Associated Press yesterday, indicate that the plane was warned several times that it was approaching Turkey’s airspace and asked to change course.
Turkey shot down the Russian Su-24 bomber on Tuesday, insisting that it had violated its airspace despite repeated warnings.
A surviving Russian pilot has pilot has denied that his jet veered into Turkey’s airspace and rejected Turkey’s claim that it had issued repeated warnings to the Russian crew.
The series of 10 audio clips were released by the prime minister’s office and sourced to the Turkish Armed Forces.
In the recordings, a voice is heard saying in saying broken English: “This is Turkish Air Force speaking on guard. You are approaching Turkish airspace. Change your heading south immediately.” Most of the audio is garbled and barely comprehensible but the tone of the voice gets more agitated as the warnings appear to go unnoticed.
One of the Russian pilots was killed by militants in Syria after ejecting from the plane, while his crewmate was rescued by Syrian army commandos. A Russian marine was also killed by the militants during the rescue mission.
Speaking in televised comments from the Russian base in Syria, the surviving navigator of the downed plane, Capt. Konstantin Murakhtin, maintained the plane did not enter the Turkish airspace “even for a single second.”
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