Turkey to Suspend Syria Airstrikes, Seeks Calming Tensions
Local Editor
A day after Russia announced suspending all cooperation with the Turkish military including a set up to share information about Russian air strikes in Syria, Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday sought easing tensions with Moscow over the unexplained downing of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border.
"Turkey will work with Russia and our allies to calm tensions," Davutoglu wrote in Friday's edition of The Times in London.
"The downing of an unidentified jet in Turkish airspace was not, and is not, an act against a specific country," he justified.
In the context, the major row with Moscow pushed NATO member Turkey to "temporarily" suspend airstrikes against "ISIS" targets in Syria.
Russia, however, threatened economic retaliation against Turkey and said it is still awaiting a reasonable explanation for the shooting down of its warplane.
On another level, Russia said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan requested a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Paris on November 30, on the sidelines of the forthcoming global climate summit in the capital.
"A proposal from the Turkish side about a meeting at the level of heads of state has been delivered to the president," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on a conference call Friday.
It is worth mentioning that Putin, calling the incident a "stab in the back", demanded on Thursday an apology from Turkish leadership. However, his Turkish counterpart angrily rebuffed the demand.
On its part, Turkish Hurriyet newspaper cited security sources as saying that: "Both sides agreed to act cautiously until they re-establish dialogue channels to reduce tensions."
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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