Turkey offers talks over downed jet but warns Moscow: ‘Don’t play with fire’

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan held out an olive branch to Moscow on Friday while warning it should not “play with fire” in the row over the downing of a Russian warplane. He said the Kremlin’s criticism of his country’s decision to bring down the SU-24 jet on the Syrian border on Tuesday was unacceptable. But he added he did not want to harm relations with Russia and offered to meet counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the climate summit in Paris. However, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We believe that the Turkish leadership has crossed the line of what is acceptable.” Moscow later announced it would suspend its visa-free regime for Turkish nationals from January.

I would like to bring the issue to a reasonable point. We are disturbed that the issue has been escalated.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Earlier, China called for calm as it stepped into the row. It joined calls from other world leaders to avoid escalating the dispute, instead urging the international community to coordinate in the fight against terror. “A Russian warplane has been shot down and a pilot killed - this is an unfortunate incident and we express sympathy,” the foreign ministry said. Opposing terrorism was an urgent task for the international community to face together, it added. “The relevant parties should increase communication to avoid further escalating the situation.”

The international community should earnestly strengthen coordination and cooperation in the fight against terrorism to avoid this kind of incident from happening again.

Chinese foreign ministry

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