Post-Jet downing, Turkey warns against Russia travel

Istanbul: Turkey on Saturday warned its citizens off non-urgent travel to Russia in the latest tit-for-tat move as the two nations square off over Ankar’s downing of one of Moscow’s warplanes.

The foreign ministry in Ankara said travel to Russia should be avoided a day after Moscow — which had earlier urged its nationals to leave Turkey — announced it was scrapping its visa-free regime for Turkish visitors.

The Russian government has in addition said it is preparing a raft of retaliatory economic measures to Tuesday’s downing of its jet on the Turkey-Syria border — that could see major investment projects and key economic sectors hit.

The incident has sparked a bitter war of words between the two strongmen leaders, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who are rival players in the war in Syria.

NATO member Turkey blasted the Russian jet out of the sky after claiming it crossed into its airspace but Putin has furiously denied that and demanded an apology.

“We advise Russia not to play with fire,” Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara on Friday, lashing out at Russia's response to the downing as well as its support of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The shooting down of the jet is thought to be the first downing of a Russian warplane by a NATO member since 1952 and has been decried by Putin as a “stab in the back committed by accomplices of terrorists”.

Erdogan has nevertheless said he wanted a direct meeting with Putin when the two leaders are in Paris next week for the UN climate summit. But Putin is yet to agree to talks and Moscow has refused to let up the pressure on Ankara.

“From our point of view, it is now difficult to determine the level of predictability in the actions of the Turkish leadership,” Kremlin spo-kesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview released Saturday.