RT: Russia-Turkey relations sour after Su-24 downed at Syria borderLIVE UPDATES

The Russian Defense Ministry has said that all channels of military cooperation with Turkey were suspended on Thursday, including a hotline set up to share information about Russian air strikes in Syria. Moscow has also recalled its military representative from Turkey.

“Today, in accordance with the decision taken earlier, all channels of cooperation between the Russian Defense Ministry and the armed forces of Turkey were suspended,” said ministry spokesman General-Major Igor Konashenkov.

Russia’s foreign ministry representative Maria Zakharova has derided the audio recording in which Turkish ground control purportedly warns Russia’s plane that it will cross the border as a fake.

“The internet is full of recordings, some very interesting, others very funny… How long did it take to edit together this masterpiece? Several days? Well, it’s value is clear now,” the official said during a press briefing in Moscow.

In a public speech to regional heads in Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has officially denied that Turkey buys oil off Islamic State, instead saying the Islamists sell the resources they have captured in Iraq and Syria to Bashar Assad.

Erdogan was responding to an accusation Vladimir Putin made in an earlier speech.

Russian foreign ministry representative Maria Zakharova says that NATO has given “Turkey a license to break the law” by backing up Ankara’s version of events, during its meeting on Wednesday.

Zakharova has also urged Turkey to officially deny it has any links with Islamists fighting against the government of Bashar Assad in Syria.

Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have exchanged angry words over Turkey’s lack of apology over the downing.

“We still haven’t heard any apologies from the leadership of Turkey, nor have we heard any proposal to compensate damages or to hold those responsible for this heinous crimes to account,” said Vladimir Putin during an official address in Moscow.

“I think if there is a party that needs to apologize, it is not us,” Erdogan told CNN in Ankara. “Those who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize.”

The head of Russia’s tourism agency, Oleg Safonov, said that co-operation with Turkey in this area will “obviously” cease in response to the downing of the Russian Su-24. The agency has already instructed tour operators to stop selling travel packages, and Safonov estimates that Turkey’s hospitality industry will suffer losses of $10 billion a year from the move.

Turkey is the top foreign destination for Russian tourists, above Egypt, which has also recently been closed due to the explosion of the Russian passenger in Sinai jet last month. Safonov predicted that Russians will take 40 percent fewer foreign trips next year.

Turkey’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Ankara has no plans to apologize to Russia over the Su-24 downing.

“There is no reason for us to apologize in a situation in which we are in the right. We have already expressed our condolences to Moscow,” the official said during a trip to Northern Cyprus.

Russia’s prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered for a freeze of economic relations with Turkey, and said the government is preparing to impose “indefinite” across-the-board sanctions.

“The length of these sanctions will depend on the international situation, on questions of security, and more generally, on our relationship with Ankara,” said Medvedev.

Turkey’s military said on Wednesday it invited Russian military attaches to its headquarters and explained that Ankara shot down a Russian fighter jet because its rules of engagement went into effect after the plane did not respond to warnings.

In a written statement, the Turkish armed forces said it had made great efforts to find and rescue the pilots of the plane and that it had also called military authorities in Moscow and expressed readiness for “all kinds of cooperation“. (Reuters)