On Tuesday, a Russian Su-24 jet crashed in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the plane was downed by an air-to-air missile launched by a Turkish F-16 jet over Syrian territory, and fell 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Turkish border. Putin described the Turkish attack as a "stab in the back" carried out by "accomplices of terrorists."
"Turkey has always been for peace, dialogue, diplomatic settlement, and after that we will continue doing the same. But don’t anyone expect that we will remain deaf and blind to violations of our space, our borders, or our sovereignty. We have no intentions of exaggerating this incident [with the Su-24], we are only defending our security and our brothers," Erdogan said during an Islamic economic congress in Istanbul.
On Tuesday, Turkey claimed it shot down the Russian airplane because it violated Turkish airspace.
Both the Russian General Staff and the Syrian Air Defense Command confirmed that the Su-24 never crossed into Turkish airspace, in accordance with precise objective control data.
Turkish authorities only realized the Air Force had downed a Russian military plane after the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the incident, Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday.
“It became clear that the plane belonged to the Russian Federation only after Russian authorities announced it,” Erdogan said during an Islamic economic congress in Istanbul.