Russia-Turkey tensions continue to rise as neither side apologizes

A tense quarrel between Russia and Turkey continued on Friday, as Russia reportedly opted to suspend visa-free travel with the country that recently shot down one of its warplanes over Syria.

Meanwhile, the president of Turkey cautioned Russia not to mistreat Turkish citizens who had traveled to the country and accused the country of playing with fire during a televised speech.

The countries have been closely watched following the Tuesday incident in which a Turkish jet fired at a Russian plane that it said crossed into its airspace despite repeated warnings not to do so. Russian officials, including the surviving pilot of the warplane, dispute Turkey’s version of the events and say no warning was given and the plane never once violated Turkey’s airspace.

The BBC reported Friday that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is seeking a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin in France, where the leaders are scheduled to attend a summit on climate change beginning Monday. But Putin wants Turkey to apologize before such a meeting.

According to CNN, that won’t happen.

“I think if there is a party that needs to apologize, it is not us,” Erdogan told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday. “Those who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize.”

Instead, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, announced Friday that the country would put visa-free travel to Turkey on hold beginning January 1, the BBC reported. That could have major impacts on the country’s tourism industry, which welcomed 3 million Russian visitors in 2014.

The countries are also trading partners, though some of those relationships now appear rocky.

Reuters reported that several Russian manufacturers have been advised to stop purchasing supplies from Turkey, a move it said could adversely affect multi-million dollar contracts.

The Reuters report also indicated Erdogan was angry about published reports that said Turkish businessmen had been detained while in Russia. There was reportedly an issue with their visas.

“We sincerely recommend Russia not to play with fire,” he said, according to a video on Reuters’ website.

Russian pilot: Turkey provided no warning before shots were fired

The pilot of the Russian warplane that was shot down on Tuesday is claiming that Turkey did not provide any sort of warning before opening fire on the aircraft, according to reports.

Captain Konstantin Murakhtin is also claiming that the plane never crossed into Turkey’s airspace, though this claim has been disputed by NATO and United States military officials.

Murakhtin spoke to reporters a Russian air base in northern Syria on Wednesday, a day after he and the aircraft’s other pilot ejected from the aircraft that was shot down near the Syrian border. He was rescued after a half-day operation that involved using special forces, the BBC reported.

The other Russian pilot was killed.

Murakhtin told RT, a Russian television network, that the pilots did not receive a verbal or visual warning before a Turkish plane opened fire and hit their aircraft with a missile. He also claimed he knew the area very well and it was “impossible that we violated their airspace.”

Turkish officials had said they warned the pilots 10 times in five minutes, the New York Times reported, and that the plane crossed a tiny piece of Turkish territory in about 17 seconds.

NATO, of which Turkey is a member, has backed Turkey’s version of the events. A senior United States military official, speaking to the New York Times, said the data indicated the Russian plane flew over Turkey. CNN reported Turkey released tapes of what it said were the warnings.

The back-and-forth nature of the claims were escalating tensions between the two nations.

Multiple countries have called for the situation to be de-escalated, according to reports, and officials from Turkey and Russia are both quoted as saying they want to avoid military conflict.

Yet the Russian defense minister announced the country will deploy missile defense systems to the air base in Syria. The missiles would be able to reach the Turkish border, CNN reported.

U.S. Satellites Detected “Heat Flash” Just Before Russian Plane Crashed

Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Press Service of Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via Reuters

A new clue regarding the crash of Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 that killed 224 people is having investigators asking more questions rather than providing more answers.

Yesterday, various news agencies reported that a United States infrared satellite detected a heat flash over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at approximately the same time that the plane crashed, according to CNN. Intelligence analysis indicates that there may have been an explosive device on board the plane or a catastrophic malfunction took place.

Aviation analyst Paul Beaver talked with the Chicago Tribune, stating that there could still be a multitude of reasons why the plane went down.

“It doesn’t tell us if it was a bomb … or if somebody had a fight in the airplane with a gun — there is a whole raft of things that could happen in this regard,” he said.

U.S. officials told NBC News that they have ruled out the possibility of a missile bringing down the plane because the heat flash did not show the kind of tail that would’ve followed a missile or rocket. Pentagon officials also stated that it’s a possibility that the flash isn’t related to crash considering how there is regular military activity in the Sinai Peninsula, according to ABC News.

A preliminary investigation of the crash site has indicated that the plane did take heavy damage at an altitude of over 10,000 meters. It has also been reported that the crew did not send out a distress signal which leads investigators and analysts to believe that whatever did happen on the plane, happened suddenly.

A new report released from CNN Wednesday morning revealed another clue related to the crash. Russian state broadcaster Russia 24 reported that the tail of the plane was found 3 miles away from the rest of the wreckage, leading investigators to examine what could’ve went wrong with the tail, especially since it had been damaged previously.

“To me, it says (the tail) exited the plane before (an) explosive event and before the fire engulfed the plane,” said CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo.