Russian President Vladimir Putin Photo: AP

 

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, on Tuesday. The plane was shot down by Turkey for alleged trespassing. Photo: AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet a stab in the back administered by "the accomplices of terrorists," saying the incident would have serious consequences for Moscow's relations with Ankara.

Turkey shot down the Russian Su-24 warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday, saying it had repeatedly violated its airspace. It is one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century.

Analysts called the Turkey move senseless and hard to understand, which is likely to seriously hurt Russia-Turkey relations and complicate the regional and global efforts in fighting terrorism represented by the Islamic State.

Speaking in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday during a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah, Putin said the plane had been downed by an air-to-air missile from a Turkish plane inside Syria when it was 1 kilometer from the Turkish border and 6,000 meters in the air. The jet had come down 4 kilometers inside Syria.

That contradicted Turkey's assertion that the aircraft had been warned multiple times that it was straying into Turkish airspace before it was shot down.

Putin stated that the Su-24 incident in Syria steps over the boundary in the conventional war against terrorism, according to Russia's Sputnik News.

"Today's loss is related to a stab in the back, carried out against us by accomplices of terrorists. I cannot otherwise describe what happened today," Putin said.

He warned of "serious consequences" and said "We will never tolerate such crimes like the one committed today," Reuters quoted Putin as saying.

Putin said Russian pilots and planes had in no way threatened Turkey, but had merely been carrying out their duty to fight Islamic State militants inside Syria.

Each country summoned a diplomatic representative of the other and NATO called a meeting of its ambassadors for Tuesday afternoon.

Russia's decision to launch separate airstrikes in Syria means Russian and NATO planes have been flying combat missions in the same airspace for the first time since World War II, targeting various insurgent groups close to the Turkish borders.

A US official said US forces were not involved in the downing of the Russian jet.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday the US could broaden military cooperation with Russia in Syria, but that such a move should not deter opposition groups trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia-West thaw at risk

The incident appeared to scupper hopes of a rapprochement between Russia and the West in the wake of the Islamic State attacks in Paris, which led to calls for a united front against the radical jihadist group in Syria.

Ahmad Fawzi, the UN's spokesman in Geneva, warned that the downing of the jet could complicate the war on terror in Syria.

Fawzi noted that countries involved in the fight against terrorism should abide by all recognized international norms, they should observe human rights and that their actions should be based on the rule of law, Sputnik News quoted the director of the UN information center as saying during a UN news briefing on Tuesday.

Analysts in China said Turkey's actions were surprising and hard to understand, given the rising world consensus in fighting the IS, especially after the Paris terror attacks.

"Russian-Turkish ties will suffer the brunt of Turkey's downing of the jet. It's a slap in the face for Russia, whether Turkey did it deliberately or not. And Russia will give it a hard time in the future," a Beijing-based expert on Turkey studies, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times.

The two countries have a similar stance in fighting terrorism, although they may disagree on the Assad regime. But the downing may complicate the anti-terrorism situation, he said on Tuesday.

Second pilot missing

Although the two Russian pilots on the warplane managed to eject before the crash, one pilot was reportedly killed by rebels and the second is missing, rebel and opposition sources said.

A Russian helicopter was also hit and damaged by rebel fire in the same area of northern Syria, a monitoring group said, but it was able to land in government-held territory.

The sources told AFP that the first pilot was killed by opposition forces who shot at him as he landed after ejecting from the plane.

Several videos circulating online purported to show the dead pilot surrounded by rebels from different factions.

Turkmen forces in Syria shot dead the two pilots of the Russian jet downed by Turkish warplanes near the border with Turkey on Tuesday as they descended with parachutes, a deputy commander of a Turkmen brigade told reporters, reported Reuters.