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Forced Landing Of Syrian Plane, Opens Rift Between Turkey And Russia

People speak atop the aircraft steps of a Syrian passenger plane that was forced by Turkish jets to land at Esenboga airport in Ankara, Turkey, early Thursday.
Burhan Ozbilici
/
AP

The rift between Syria and Turkey deepened, after Turkish warplanes forced a Moscow-to-Damascus bound passenger airplane to land on Wednesday.

Not only that but it also opened fresh conflict with Russia. The New York Times reports that today Moscow demanded answers for it called "air piracy" and Turkey said it had found illegal materials on board.

The Times reports:

"'I think that tension will now develop in the relationship between Russia and Turkey,' a Russian Foreign Ministry official said, accusing Turkish officials of breaking the law by searching the Syrian plane on the ground.

"Moscow's complaints brought a quick riposte from Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag of Turkey, who was quoted by the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency as saying 'materials that infringed international regulations' had been confiscated when Turkish officials searched the aircraft."

Remember, tensions in the region have been red-hot ever since Syria lobbed a mortar across the border into Turkey. Turkey has since retaliated and the two have traded fire on many occasions.

CBS News monitored Turkish TV, which spoke to Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"We are determined to stop the flow of weapons to a regime that carries out such ruthless massacres," Davutoglu said. "We cannot accept that our air space be used for such aims."

Reuters reports that today Turkey summoned the Russian ambassador, presumably to talk about the incident.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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