Russia's Turkey

Russia's Lavrov: We do not plan to go to war with Turkey

By Nick Gass

Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday called Turkey's decision to shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane as it crossed over Turkish airspace a "pre-planned provocation" but played down any speculation that Moscow is seeking to escalate the international incident.

“We have serious doubts that this was an unintended incident. It looks very much like a pre-planned provocation,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters, blaming the Turkish government for failing to communicate in advance but also sharing that he had spoken with his Turkish counterpart and would plan to meet with him in the coming days as Moscow reexamines its relationship with Ankara.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu "tried to reassure me that was not the case, but I referred him to the meeting between President Putin and King Abdullah of Jordan," Lavrov said.

"We do not plan to go to war with Turkey, our attitude toward the Turkish people has not changed," Lavrov said, according to Agence France-Presse's report.

In his remarks Tuesday in Sochi, Putin condemned the shootdown as a "stab in our back."

Lavrov also commented on what he called "very strange sentiments" following Tuesday's NATO meeting in Brussels, "which didn’t express any regret or condolences and in effect were aimed at covering up what the Turkish Air Force did yesterday," noting that the European Union reacted similarly.

The foreign minister had been scheduled to meet with Çavuşoğlu in Istanbul on Wednesday, but Lavrov canceled that rendezvous after Tuesday's incident.