Russia to halt Turks' visa-free travel

Erdogan seeking parley with Putin

Russian military trucks carry long-range S-400 air-defense missile systems along the runway Friday at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria, about 30 miles south of the Turkish border.
Russian military trucks carry long-range S-400 air-defense missile systems along the runway Friday at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria, about 30 miles south of the Turkish border.

MOSCOW -- Russia announced Friday that it will suspend visa-free travel with Turkey amid the escalating dispute over the downing of a Russian warplane by a Turkish fighter jet at the Syrian border.

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AP/DHA agency

Turkish tanks sit at a rail station Friday in Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, after arriving from the western part of the country.

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AP Photo/ Presidential Press Service, Pool

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses a rally in Bayburt, Turkey, Friday, Nov. 27, 2015.

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AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking to the media during his and France's President Francois Hollande news conference following the talks in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2015.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that Moscow will halt the existing visa-free policy starting Jan. 1, saying that Turkey has become a conduit for terrorists and has been reluctant to share information with Moscow about Russian citizens accused of involvement in terrorist activities.

Turkey's downing of the Russian military jet Tuesday has drawn a harsh response from Moscow. Russia has since restricted tourist travel, left Turkish trucks stranded at the border, confiscated large quantities of Turkish food imports and started preparing broader economic sanctions.

President Vladimir Putin also has ordered the deployment of the long-range S-400 air-defense missile systems to a Russian air base in Syria just 30 miles south of the border with Turkey to help protect Russian warplanes, and the Russian military warned it would shoot down any aerial target that would pose a potential threat to its planes.

In the Mediterranean, the military moved the missile cruiser Moskva closer to the Syrian coast to help cover Russian bombers on combat missions.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to apologize for the plane's downing, which Ankara said came after it flew for 17 seconds into Turkish airspace. At the same time, Erdogan said he has tried in vain to speak by phone to Putin to discuss the situation and expressed hope that they could meet at the sidelines of a climate summit in Paris on Monday.

"I would like to meet Putin face to face in Paris," Erdogan said in a speech Friday. "I would like to bring the issue to a reasonable point. We are disturbed that the issue has been escalated."

Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Friday that the Kremlin had received Erdogan's request for a meeting but wouldn't say whether such a meeting is possible.

Asked why Putin hasn't picked up the phone to respond to Erdogan's two phone calls, Ushakov said that "we have seen that the Turkish side hasn't been ready to offer an elementary apology over the plane incident."

Erdogan also warned Russia "not to play with fire" in reacting to the shoot-down and added, "We really attach a lot of importance to our relations with Russia, and we don't want our relations to suffer in any way."

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Ankara "will work with Russia and our allies to calm tensions" over the matter.

Turkish media quoted officials as saying the country had suspended airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria as part of "a mutual decision taken with Russia, which has also halted its aerial campaign near the Turkish border."

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus voiced hope that Moscow would keep military and diplomatic channels open and said that Ankara was considering possible measures in response to Russian economic sanctions. He said Turkey doesn't think Russia would risk losing it as a partner.

Russia Disputes Claim

Speaking to reporters after Friday's Cabinet meeting, Kurtulmus said Turkey would not have shot down the plane if it had known it was Russian and said this is what Turkish officials have told senior Russian officials.

He added that if the pilots had responded to the Turkish warnings and informed them that they were Russians, the shooting wouldn't have occurred either.

In Moscow, Russia's air force chief, Col.-Gen. Viktor Bondarev, reaffirmed Friday that Turkey hadn't issued any warnings on a previously agreed radio frequency before downing the plane. He insisted that the Russian Su-24 bomber hadn't veered into Turkey's airspace and claimed that the Turkish F-16 fighter jet flew into Syria's airspace for 40 seconds to down the Russian plane.

Putin also dismissed Turkey's claim that it had no idea whose warplane it shot down.

"This is all a load of nonsense, just an attempt to make excuses," Putin said Thursday after meeting with French President Francois Hollande. "It is a shame that instead of making a thorough investigation of the situation and taking steps to make sure such things never happen again, we hear from them these unclear explanations and statements to the effect that there is nothing even to apologize for."

In the past, Putin and Erdogan have enjoyed close political relations despite differences over Syria, and they met separately on the sidelines of the recent Group of 20 summit hosted by Turkey.

But the summit in Antalya marked a deep rift over Syria, when Putin showed fellow G-20 leaders aerial pictures of what he said were convoys of oil trucks carrying crude from fields controlled by the Islamic State group into Turkey.

"We have no doubt whatsoever that this oil goes to Turkey, we are seeing it from the air," Putin said. "If Turkey's political leadership doesn't know anything about it, they should know now."

Erdogan angrily dismissed the Russian accusations, but Putin retorted Thursday that it was hard to believe that the Turkish leadership didn't know about the illegal oil trade.

And in a speech late Thursday in southeast Turkey, Erdogan criticized the Kremlin for its support of President Bashar Assad of Syria, saying, "Moscow's siding with a man who conducts state terror is not acceptable."

Russia, the United States and France all have focused their airstrikes on the Islamic State's oil infrastructure, seeking to undermine the group's financial base after terrorist attacks in Paris and the downing of a Russian passenger plane in Egypt.

Putin said late Thursday that Moscow would continue to cooperate with the United States-led coalition in its fight against the Islamic State, but he said that episodes like the shoot-down could jeopardize the joint operation.

Hollande said he and Putin had agreed that France and its allies would share intelligence with Russia, coordinate more strikes against Islamic State targets and concentrate attacks on mainly the militants' infrastructure rather than that of other groups.

Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Friday that Russia strongly backs France's proposal to shut down the Turkish-Syrian border as a way to fight Islamic State fighters in Syria.

Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov and Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press and by Ceylan Yeginsu and Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times.

A Section on 11/28/2015

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