MOSCOW: Moscow slapped sanctions on Ankara on Friday as the war of words over a downed Russian warplane escalated, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warning Russia not to “play with fire”.

Russia announced it was halting a visa-free regime for Turkish visitors, after threatening a raft of retaliatory economic measures to punish the Nato member state.

Tuesday’s incident has sent recriminations flying between two rival players in the Syrian war just as countries such as France are pushing for a broader coalition to try to defeat the militant Islamic State (IS) group.

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

Erdogan nevertheless said he wanted a direct meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin when the two leaders are in Paris next week for the UN climate summit.

War of words between Moscow, Ankara escalates

But Moscow responded coolly, saying Turkey has yet to apologise for shooting down the jet near the Syrian border.

Turkey says the Su-24 warplane strayed into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings but Russia insists it did not cross from Syria.

It is thought to be the first downing of a Russian plane by a Nato member in more than half a century.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Turkey had “crossed the line of what is acceptable” and warned the incident could severely undermine both its national and regional interests.

Moscow has ruled out any military response, but has pledged broad measures targeting entire sectors of the Turkish economy including tourism, agriculture and possibly key energy projects.

Lavrov said Turkish nationals would require visas from January 1, after Putin this week warned citizens not to travel to Turkey — a hugely popular destination for Russians.

“Russia is quite concerned with increasing terrorist threats in the Republic of Turkey,” Lavrov added, after a spate of bloody attacks blamed on IS extremists there.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday gave ministers two days to work out a plan to curb cooperation with Turkish companies after Russia said it would tighten checks on food imports over alleged safety standard violations.

Moscow has also hinted the reprisals could hit two major projects with Turkey — a planned gas pipeline and a nuclear power plant.

The two countries have built trade ties in recent years and Russia is already energy-poor Turkey’s biggest oil and gas supplier.

But they are on opposing sides in the Syrian conflict, with Ankara backing rebels fighting to topple Assad while Moscow is one of his last remaining allies.

Erdogan said Turkey did not “deliberately” shoot down the plane.

He dismissed Putin’s criticism of the incident as “unacceptable”, noting that Russian planes had twice violated Turkish air space in October.

He also attacked the Kremlin’s policy in Syria after it launched air strikes in September, saying it was backing the “murderer” Assad and not targeting IS militants.

Erdogan has already accused Putin of snubbing a phone call after the incident, but has refused to bow to Russian demands for an apology.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2015