ANKARA, December 2. /TASS/. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin he received a confirmation Russia had nothing to do with the recent attack on Turkish forces in Syria.
The daily Turkiye reports Erdogan was speaking at a working breakfast with parliament members.
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"Over the past week we’ve had three conversations with Mr. Putin. He said that Russia had nothing to do whatsoever with the attack on the Turkish forces," Erdogan said, adding that in his opinion "the attack was staged by the forces of the regime," in other words, the Syrian army.
"Also, we discussed efforts by our countries to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria. I asked Mr. Putin about attacks on schools and hospitals in Aleppo. I asked him who dealt the strike and he replied it was not Russia. We did not mount such attacks, either, so I asked who did that," the daily quotes Erdogan as saying.
On November 24, Turkish troops in Syria came under attack by combat aircraft. Three servicemen were killed and ten others injured. According to preliminary data Turkey made public on the same day the Syrian Air Force might have taken part in the air raid.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Alanya on December 1 that neither Russian nor Syrian aircraft had been involved. Russia and Turkey discussed that issue at various levels shortly after the incident.
"There is a common understanding Russia and Syria’s Air Force were not responsible," Lavrov said.