Russia furiously demanded answers from Turkey on Thursday after it forced a Syrian passenger plane flying from Moscow to land in Ankara on suspicion of carrying "illegal cargo," reportedly weapons, to Damascus.
Russia
furiously demanded answers from
Turkey
on
Thursday after it forced a Syrian passenger plane flying from
Moscow
to
land in
Ankara
on
suspicion of carrying "illegal cargo," reportedly weapons, to
Damascus
.
Turkey
's
action on Wednesday risks not only inflaming tensions with
Syria
, but
also hurting ties between
Ankara
and
Moscow
,
which have starkly differing views on the
Syria
conflict.
And President Vladmir Putin's spokesman said Thursday the Russian leader has
postponed a planned visit to
Turkey
,
without giving the reason for the delay.
The trip had been reportedly scheduled for Oct. 15 although the first media
reports of the postponement surfaced before plane was intercepted on Wednesday.
Turkey
scrambled two jets to force down the Syrian Air Airbus A-320 after reportedly
receiving intelligence it was carrying military cargo for the regime of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad.
Russia
, a
top ally of the
Damascus
regime and its biggest arms supplier, said
Ankara
had
put the lives of passengers--who included Russian citizens--at risk by forcing
it to land in the Turkish capital, and denied it was carrying arms or military
equipment.
"We are concerned that this emergency situation put at risk the lives and
safety of passengers, who included 17 Russian citizens," said a statement
by foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
"The Russian side continues to insist on an explanation of the reasons for
such actions by the Turkish authorities toward Russian citizens and to take
measures to exclude such incidents in the future," he added.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said
Turkey
had
seized "illegal cargo" from the plane, adding that
Turkey
would
hold on to it for further investigation but declining to elaborate on the
contents, the
Anatolia
news agency reported.
The confiscated cargo was believed to be missile parts, the Turkish NTV news
channel reported, while state-run TRT speculated it could be communications
equipment headed for
Damascus
.
A source in the Russian arms export industry denied the claims.
"Neither weapons nor any systems or assembly parts for military equipment
were or could have been on board the passenger plane," the unidentified
high-ranking source fold Interfax.
Russia
has
infuriated
Turkey
and
its Western allies by refusing to halt military cooperation with
Syria
, one
of its key weapons clients, despite the raging conflict in the country.
Ties between the one-time allies
Syria
and
Turkey
have
soured dramatically over the conflict, particularly when a Turkish fighter jet
was brought down by Syrian fire in June, killing two pilots.
Turkey
has
also sent in major troop and arms reinforcements to the border with
Syria
and
warned of strong retaliation after a series of shell strikes on its soil,
including a deadly attack last week that left two women and three children
dead.
The sabre-rattling added to growing fears of a wider regional fallout from the
conflict ravaging
Syria
, in
which activists say more than 32,000 people have died since March 2011.
Earlier this month,
Iraq
stopped and searched a Syria-bound Iranian cargo plane but allowed it to
continue as no prohibited items were found.
And in June,
Britain
forced a Russian cargo vessel allegedly carrying attack helicopters and
missiles for
Syria
to
turn back.
Turkey
and
Russia
have
starkly different views on the
Syria
conflict, with
Moscow
defiantly refusing to take sides against Assad's regime which Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vehemently condemned.
But Davutoglu said "the incident would not affect Turkish-Russian
relations at this point".
However, in a sign of the tensions the plane intercept could cause, the Russian
foreign ministry also listed a number of what it saw as serious shortcomings by
the Turkish authorities in their handling of the incident.
"The Turkish side did not inform the Russian embassy in
Ankara
that
there are Russian citizens among the detained plane's passengers," it
said. "We found out about this from news websites."
It said the Turkish authorities denied Russian diplomats a meeting with the
Russian citizens, without an explanation.
The Russian passengers had to spend eight hours on the plane without food and
were not permitted to go inside the airport, only to rarely exit the plane and
go down to the landing strip, the statement said.
According to
Anatolia
, the plane was allowed to
leave at 2330 GMT, nine hours after it was intercepted, with all of its 35
passengers on board.
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