Turkey: Downed plane 'not spying'

Turkey’s foreign minister said a Turkish jet was downed in international airspace after it mistakenly entered Syria, but the plane was not on a spying mission.

Ahmet Davutoglu said the plane entered Syrian airspace on Friday, but quickly left when warned by Turkey.

He said the plane had no “covert mission related to Syria,” and it was purely on a training flight to test Turkey’s radar capabilities.

Mr Davutoglu said the plane was shot down by Syria in “international airspace” several minutes after it left.

He spoke on state-run TRT television today, two days after the downing of the jet in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Syria on Saturday insisted the shooting down of the plane was “not an attack,” and that the plane had violated its airspace.