Ankara's ‘patience with Russia has a limit’ said Turkey's foreign minister

Turkey’s foreign minister said Ankara’s patience with Russia “has a limit” after Moscow’s “exaggerated” reaction to a weekend naval incident between the two countries, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

A Russian destroyer fired warning shots at a Turkish vessel in the Aegean on Sunday to avoid a collision and summoned the Turkish military attaché over the incident.

“Ours was only a fishing boat, it seems to me that the reaction of the Russian naval ship was exaggerated,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told the newspaper.

“Russia and Turkey certainly have to re-establish the relations of trust that we have always had, but our patience has a limit.”

The incident is likely to heighten tensions between the two nations who are at odds over Syria and Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane last month.

Cavusoglu said Russia had already “put itself in a ridiculous position” with claims by its president, Vladimir Putin, that Turkey had shot down the jet to protect oil supplies from Islamic State. “No-one believed it” he said.

He also criticised Russia’s military intervention in Syria.