Don't play with fire Turkish President Recep Tayyip tells Russia's President Vladimir Putin

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
warned Russia's President Vladimir Putin not to
"play with fire" over his country's downing of a
Russian jet.
Mr Erdogan also said he wanted to meet Mr Putin
"face-to-face" at climate talks in Paris to resolve
the issue.
Mr Putin wants an apology from Turkey before he
will speak to Mr Erdogan, the Russian president's
aide said.
Russia has suspended its visa-free arrangement
with Turkey in the latest of a range of retaliatory
measures.

Turkey says the Russian warplane was in its
airspace when the decision was taken to shoot it
down on Tuesday - Russia insists the plane was
flying over Syria at the time.
Tensions have been heightened by the fact that
the two countries are pursuing different aims in
Syria.
Russia has been carrying out air strikes against
opponents of President Bashar al-Assad since late
September, while Turkey, which is a member of a
US-led coalition, insists Mr Assad must step
down before any political solution to the crisis is
found.
However, all are united in trying to rid the region
of the so-called Islamic State (IS), also known as
Daesh.
Strongmen's war of words: Analysis by BBC
Turkish's Ebru Dogan
On Thursday, Turkey's President Erdogan seemed
to offer an olive branch to Moscow when he told
France 24 TV: "If we had known it was a Russian
plane, maybe we would have warned it
differently." On Friday, he accused Moscow of
"playing with fire" and "lying".
Did he change his rhetoric dramatically in less
than 24 hours? Hardly. The first message was
delivered to a Western audience, the second, to a
domestic.
Turkey's Western allies in Nato fully backed
Ankara in the crisis - but also questioned in more
hushed tones whether 17 seconds of airspace
violation was good enough reason to shoot down
a plane.
Despite the harsh rhetoric on Friday, Mr Erdogan
also repeated his offer to meet Mr Putin next
week. But Mr Putin made clear that he wants an
apology before he agrees to a meeting. The war
of words between the two strong men of the East
shows no sign of abating.
In a televised speech, Mr Erdogan warned Russia
it was "playing with fire to attack the Syrian
opposition, who have international legitimacy,
under the pretext of fighting against Daesh".
He said Moscow was also playing with fire to use
the downing of the jet "as an excuse to make
unacceptable accusations against us", and
accused Russians of "mistreating" Turkish
citizens who were in the country for a trade fair.
Mr Erdogan said he hoped to meet Mr Putin face-
to-face on the sidelines of the climate summit in
Paris next week "to bring the issue to a
reasonable point. We are disturbed that the issue
has been escalated."
While he has refused to apologise, Mr Erdogan
did say on Thursday that had Turkey known the
plane was Russian, "may be we would have
warned it differently".
But Mr Putin has firmly rejected any suggestion
Turkey did not recognise the plane as Russian.
He said it was easily identifiable and its
coordinates had been passed on to Turkey's ally,
the US.
A senior Russian commander went further on
Friday and claimed the Russian jet was
"ambushed" by two Turkish F-16s.
Gen Viktor Bondarev said Russian and Syrian
radar data showed the F-16s had been flying in
the area for more than an hour, and the plane
that fired the missile did so from 2km (1.2 miles)
inside Syria.
The Russian plane was shot down 5.5km (3.4
miles) south of the Turkish border, he said.
The Turkish military earlier in the week released
audio of what it said were repeated warnings to
the Russian jet to change its course, and claimed
the jet had spent 17 seconds in Turkish air space
before being shot down.
Announcing the suspension of a visa-free travel
regime with Turkey from 1 January, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he believed
the Turkish leadership had "crossed the line of
what is acceptable".
Russia on Thursday said it was drafting a wide-
ranging list of economic sanctions against
Turkey, that would hit food imports and joint
investment projects among other things.
Turkey and Russia have important economic
links . Russia is Turkey's second-largest trading
partner, while more than three million Russian
tourists visited Turkey last year.