Turkey downs Russian fighter jet as Syria war embroils foreign powers

Last Modified: Tue, Nov 24 2015. 06 30 PM IST

Russia denies airspace violation, says it can prove the jet had not left Syrian air space

Ankara/Moscow: Turkey said it shot down a Russian warplane near the border with northwestern Syria, marking the first direct clash between the foreign powers embroiled in the civil war and roiling global markets.

Turkey said its planes fired after the pilots ignored repeated warnings about violating its airspace. Russia's defense ministry denied the plane had ever crossed the border from Syria. While acknowledging that one of its jets had crashed in the country, the ministry didn't immediately blame Turkey, saying the plane appeared to have been downed by fire from the ground. The pilots are believed to have ejected and a search is underway, the ministry said Tuesday on its website.

Turkey's action is the first time in decades that a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has downed a Russian military aircraft. It raised fears the Syrian civil war could be spiraling to a new level as the outside powers which have intervened — including Russia, the US, Iran and Turkey — come into direct conflict.

Stock markets in Europe slipped on the news and prices of government bonds rose. Turkish and Russian markets dropped sharply.

Muted response

Russia's initial response was muted, with no immediate comment from the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin might address the "very serious incident" at an appearance later Tuesday, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "We must have patience" while information is gathered, he told a conference call.

Frants Klintsevich, deputy head of the Defense Committee in the upper house of Russia's Parliament, denounced Turkey's actions as "extremely aggressive," but said, "we can't allow any direct confrontation" between Russia and Turkey over the incident. "That would be absurd and unacceptable," he said.

Tony Brenton, a former UK ambassador to Russia, said, "I don't think either side wants eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. Turkey is a member of NATO and would be backed by NATO if it came to that."

Neither side is interested in an escalating confrontation, said, Daniel Fiott, a researcher at the Institute for European Studies at VUB in Brussels. "They'll want to defuse the situation pretty quickly," he said, "because this is not something you want to have on top of all the problems in Syria at the moment."

'Serious' risk

The last time a NATO country downed a Russian warplane was in 1953, said Joerg Forbrig, senior programme director at the German Marshall Fund of the US in Berlin. The latest incident "shows to everyone how serious the risk is of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO in a place like Syria," he said. "It was just a matter of time before something like this happened."

As tensions with the West have grown over the past two years, Russia flew military planes close to European borders repeatedly.

Relations between Turkey and Russia, which started a campaign of air strikes in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces on 30 September, have soured over Putin's intervention. Turkey, which backs rebels seeking Assad's ouster, has at least twice warned Russia about incursions into Turkish airspace, threatening to shoot down violators. The government has also told Russia not to target ethnic Turkmen rebels in the border region.

Two Turkish F-16 jets "intervened" at 9:24am after the Russian jet violated Turkey's airspace, the military said. Pilots warned the Russian plane 10 times in five minutes before it was hit, according to a statement on the Turkish military's website.

Pilots ejected

CNN-Turk reported one of the pilots had been killed and the other captured by Turkmen rebels. There was no immediate Russian confirmation of that.

Video footage broadcast by Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency showed the jet bursting into flames and descending rapidly before crashing behind a mountain.

Analysts said Russia is likely to limit any response to indirect pressure on Turkey, so as not to risk a broader conflict with its NATO allies.

"Turkey's room for maneuver is limited, but Russia's room for maneuver is wider. Putin can respond asymmetrically, for example by pumping weapons into Armenia or through the Kurdish separatist issue," said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Moscow-based Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. Turkey is also a major Russian trade partner and destination for tourists.

Markets fall

The lira weakened the most among 24 currencies across emerging markets, trading down 0.9% to 2.8750 against the dollar at 12:58pm in Istanbul. The Borsa Istanbul 100 Index fell to the lowest level in almost a month and two-year bonds declined.

Russia's Micex Index fell 2.1% to 1,829.12, the most in two months, after rising 8.1% in the six previous days. Government bonds dropped for a second day, pushing five- year yields up 23 basis points to 10.11%. Bloomberg

First Published: Tue, Nov 24 2015. 03 57 PM IST

Source: Turkey downs Russian fighter jet as Syria war embroils foreign powers