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Russian upper house speaker accuses Turkey of ruining mutually beneficial cooperation

The Turkish Air Force’s F-16 fighter on November 24 shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M bomber that Ankara alleges violated the country’s airspace on the border with Syria

ST. PETERSBURG, November 27. /TASS/. Turkey did everything to ruin mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia, Speaker of the Federation Council [upper house of the Russian parliament - TASS] Valentina Matvienko said on Friday.

"We treated Turkey as our neighbor, partner, as a friendly nation; we developed mutually beneficial economic cooperation. Turkey did everything to ruin this mutually beneficial cooperation with the Russian Federation," the speaker said.

"Certainly, the Russian side rightfully waited for a serious and thorough investigation [of the incident with Russian Su-24 aircraft - TASS], measures undertaken to prevent such actions and for apologies to be brought by the Turkish side to Russia. Nothing of that took place," Matvienko said.

This situation sparked "the deepest resentment in the Russian society," she said. "I know Russian tourists refuse to go to Turkey. These are 4 mln tourists a year; Turkey earns billions of dollars from the Russian tourism," Matvienko added.

The Turkish Air Force’s F-16 fighter on November 24 shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M bomber that Ankara alleges violated the country’s airspace on the border with Syria. The Su-24M crew ejected but one of the two pilots was killed by fire from the ground. The second pilot was rescued as a result of a 12-hour operation. During evacuation of the Su-24M crew, a Mi-8 helicopter was lost and a contract marine was killed.