Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apologised for the downing of a Russian military jet near the country's border with Syria, saying there was no deliberate intention in carrying out the attack, a Kremlin spokesman said.

Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin received a message from Erdogan expressing his "sympathy and deep condolences" to the family of the killed pilot, and "asked to be forgiven".

Erdogan also reportedly promised that he would do "everything possible" to restore relations with Russia.

The Kremlin then released a statement citing Erdogan as saying Ankara "never had the desire and the intention" to down the Russian jet.

Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan's spokesman, confirmed that the Turkish leader sent the letter saying he was "sorry" for the incident, Hurriyet newspaper reported.

Turkey had not previously apologised for the November 2015 incident, which killed one Russian pilot and triggered a diplomatic row between Ankara and Moscow.

Russia has been carrying out operations against rebels in Syria in support of its ally President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey had insisted that the Sukhoi SU-24 jet was shot down for alleged airspace violation. Reports said the plane then crashed in Syrian territory near Latakia.

The Russians responded to the incident by halting package tours to Turkey and banning most agricultural imports from Turkey.

On Monday, the Russian television RT reported that Turkey has also reopened a probe into the suspected "killer" of the Russian pilot.

In Turkey, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on national television on Monday that the government will soon announce that progress has been achieved in its rapprochement with Russia.

"There are excellent results, we will share information about them in the near future,” Yildirim said.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/turkey-erdogan-russian-jet-160627131324044.html

Very very interesting. Now, Ersogan has realised that EU will always use his country in EU's incessant row with Russia with the promise of full membership which will never come to fruition. Most former Yugoslavian states like Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Montenegro etc that began the process of joining the EU in between mid to late 90s have almost all been integrated into that powerful multilateral body whereas Turkey started the process much earlier than all of them.

Turkey need to realise that being neutral is to her advantage. Both Russia and EU should be the one to solicit for her support and not the other way round.

I guess as well that this has a lot to do with the BREXIT as it seems after that historic plebiscite, EU may crumble or become unattractive. Same fate befell League of Nations in the lead up to WWII powerful states pulled out.

AmbodOfLASU you need to see this.

Lalasticlala Ishilove Mogidi obinoscopy Seun please let this hit front page

JBismarck:
Very very interesting. Now, Ersogan has realised that EU will always use his country in EU's incessant row with Russia with the promise of full membership which will never come to fruition. Most former Yugoslavian states like Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Montenegro etc that began the process of joining the EU in between mid to late 90s have almost all been integrated into that powerful multilateral body whereas Turkey started the process much earlier than all of them.

Turkey need to realise that being neutral is to her advantage. Both Russia and EU should be the one to solicit for her support and not the other way round.

I guess as well that this has a lot to do with the BREXIT as it seems after that historic plebiscite, EU may crumble or become unattractive. Same fate befell League of Nations in the lead up to WWII powerful states pulled out.

AmbodOfLASU you need to see this.

Looks like you live in my mind...

G007:


Looks like you live in my mind...

You're objective observer. That's all.

JBismarck:
Lalasticlala Ishilove Mogidi obinoscopy Seun please let this hit front page

For where.