Turkish leader hopes to meet Putin over downed jet
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said he hopes to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin next week in a bid to defuse tensions after Turkey downed a Russian warplane.
Erdogan expressed his hopes that the two could meet at the United Nations climate change summit which starts in Paris on Monday.
"I would like to meet (Putin) face to face in Paris," Erdogan said. "I would like to bring the issue to a reasonable point. We are disturbed that the issue has been escalated."
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin was briefed on the formal request for a meeting in Paris, but did not say whether it would take place, Russian news agency TASS reported. Ushakov said Erdogan has also requested a phone conversation with Putin.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Moscow will suspend visa-free travel with Turkey from January 1, saying that Russia is concerned about terrorist threats coming from Turkey.
"This is directly linked with the security of Russia and our citizens. There is a well-run traffic of gunmen via Turkey in various directions. These are not farfetched threats, these are quite real threats," he said, according to TASS. He said Turkey has been reluctant to share information with Moscow on the issue.
Fatih Oke, a spokesperson for the Turkish embassy in Washington, said that Turkey is Russia’s number one tourism destination.
In an opinion piece for the Times of London published Friday, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the warplane's downing was not "an act against a specific country," but was undertaken "to protect the integrity of its sovereign territory."
"Turkey will work with Russia and our allies to calm tensions," he wrote.
He said the international community must not turn on itself, "otherwise the only victors will be Daesh" using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
"Daesh worships death and rejects life, and has nothing to do with religion," he added. "Remaining indifferent to the crises in the Middle East is no longer an option. We need to rethink our collective course of action."
He "called out" Russia for bombing moderate rebels in Syria, repeating assertions made by the United States and Britain. Syrian President Bashar Assad is a key ally of Russia.
He added that "we must resist the temptation of playing the blame game and concentrate on ensuring concerted action."
Turkey shot down the Russian warplane Tuesday in the Bayirbucak region of northwestern Syria, near the Turkish border, after saying it entered Turkish airspace. Russia denies the aircraft ever left Syrian airspace.