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Saturday 28 Nov 2015 - 02:48 Makkah mean time-16-2-1437
(Image from EPA)
Ankara, (IINA) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Turkey does not owe Russia an apology for this week's downing of a Russian fighter jet, in a response statement to an apology demand from Russian President Vladimir Putin, DPA reported.
Putin had earlier criticized Turkey for not apologizing for Turkish fighter jets shooting down the Russian Su-24 bomber as it returned from a mission in support of Syrian government forces.
"We have not yet heard an apology from the highest political level of Turkey. Nor do we hear proposals to repair the damage or promises to punish the perpetrators for the crime committed", TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying.
In in an interview with broadcaster CNN International, Erdogan said: "I think if there is a side that has to apologize, then we are not it. The ones who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize".
He stressed that the Turkish pilots who did the shooting were only doing their duty. Putin said during a press conference after talks with French President Francois Hollande that the Turkish attack was unexpected and that it had not deployed air defense systems because it had considered Turkey a friendly state.
"It could not even occur to us that we could receive a blow from a country, which we used to consider our ally," Putin said, according to Russian news agency TASS.
It is noteworthy that Ankara stated that the plane crossed its airspace despite repeated warnings over a five-minute period while Moscow insists that the warplane was over Syrian territory at all times.
AG/IINA
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