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Russia Presses Turkey for Details on Plane’s Cargo Russia Says Impounded Syrian Plane Had Radar Gear
(about 9 hours later)
MOSCOW — Amid rising tension with Turkey over the conflict in Syria, Russia pressed Ankara anew on Friday for an account of what Turkish officials had discovered on board a commercial jetliner that was forced to land in Turkey. MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister said Friday that a civilian Syrian jetliner impounded by Turkey on accusations it was transporting Russian military cargo illicitly to Syria was only carrying electronic components for a radar station, and that such equipment fell within the bounds of international agreements.
Turkish warplanes forced the plane to land on Wednesday on suspicion of transporting war matériel while en route from Moscow to Damascus with 35 passengers, including a number of Russians. Syria accused the Turks of assaulting the crew, denied that any illegal cargo had been aboard and demanded the return of whatever had been seized. “We have no secrets,” the minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said in a televised statement. “We have studied the situation: there were no weapons on this airplane, of course, and there could not be. On the airplane there was cargo, which a legal Russian shipper sent via legal means to a legal customer.”
Turkey’s prime minister said on Thursday that Russian munitions intended for Syria’s government had been impounded. But by Friday morning, Russian reports said that Moscow had received no details. Mr. Lavrov’s statement was the most detailed public explanation yet from Russia in its dispute with Turkey over the Moscow-to-Damascus flight of the Syrian jetliner, which was intercepted by Turkish warplanes on Wednesday and forced to land in Ankara, where the 35 passengers and crew were forced to wait for hours. Turkish inspectors examined the aircraft and impounded what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey described on Thursday as Russian munitions bound for Syria’s Defense Ministry.
“The Russian side has still not received information about the cargo removed by the Turkish side, the reasons, details and conditions of the confiscation,” a Foreign Ministry official told the Interfax news agency. The plane was permitted to leave on Thursday but both Russia and Syria protested the Turkish actions, Russia demanded a further explanation and Syria said it would file a formal complaint with international aviation authorities.
“We continue to insist on receiving this data and we hope the information will be presented in the near future,” the official said. Earlier Friday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it had still not received the requested information from the Turks.
A Turkish diplomat then told Interfax that Ankara is still investigating and and will contact Russia when it finishes its inquiry. “We continue to insist on receiving this data and we hope the information will be presented in the near future,” an unidentified official from the Foreign Ministry told Russia’s Interfax news agency.
The developments aggravated the combustible atmosphere enveloping the conflict in Syria, where a 19-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad has turned into a civil war that threatens to destabilize the Middle East. Turkey is a major backer of the insurgents trying to topple Mr. Assad and has hinted it may take military action against his forces because of the conflict, which has sent more than 100,000 Syrian refugees into Turkey. Russia is the major arms supplier to Mr. Assad’s government. .
A Turkish diplomat then told Interfax that Ankara was still investigating and wouldl contact Russia when it finished its inquiry.
The developments have aggravated the combustible atmosphere enveloping the conflict in Syria, where a 19-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad has turned into a civil war that threatens to destabilize the Middle East. Turkey is a major backer of the insurgents trying to topple Mr. Assad and has hinted it may take military action against his forces because of the conflict, which has sent more than 100,000 Syrian refugees into Turkey. Russia is the major arms supplier to Mr. Assad’s government.
Fighting between Syrian insurgents and Mr. Assad’s forces convulsed northern Syria near the Turkish border, with unconfirmed reports that rebels had seized control of a strategic highway into the embattled city of Aleppo that the Syrian Army used to resupply its troops.Fighting between Syrian insurgents and Mr. Assad’s forces convulsed northern Syria near the Turkish border, with unconfirmed reports that rebels had seized control of a strategic highway into the embattled city of Aleppo that the Syrian Army used to resupply its troops.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based antigovernment group with a network of contacts inside Syria, calculated that at least 87 soldiers were killed in fighting around the country on Thursday. If true, this would be the military’s heaviest one-day casualty toll since the conflict began. It was impossible to verify the claim.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based antigovernment group with a network of contacts inside Syria, calculated that at least 87 soldiers were killed in fighting around the country on Thursday. If true, this would be the military’s heaviest one-day casualty toll since the conflict began. It was impossible to verify the claim.
The assertion that the impounded Syrian jetliner carried Russian military cargo was made by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who declined to say how the Turks had come to suspect that the plane was carrying matériel or what precisely had been found. But he said the cargo violated international rules that prohibit passenger aircraft from carrying munitions. Mr. Erdogan declined to say how the Turks had come to suspect that the plane was carrying matériel that is prohibited on civilian jetliners or specify precisely whad had been discovered. But he said an examination of the aircraft had shown “there was such equipment inside.”
“From Russia, an institution equivalent to our Machinery and Chemical Industry has sent military tools, equipment and ammunition to the Syrian Defense Ministry,” Mr. Erdogan was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency. He was drawing a comparison to Turkey’s Machinery and Chemical Industry Institution, a leading provider of defense equipment to the Turkish military.

Ellen Barry reported from Moscow, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

“Upon the intelligence received, research there was conducted, and it was unfortunately seen that there was such equipment inside,” Mr. Erdogan said, referring to the search of the plane.
Mr. Erdogan also said a planned visit to Turkey by Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had been postponed, but that the delay had no connection with the forced grounding of the plane.
The prime minister spoke after Moscow expressed dismay at Turkey’s actions. A statement from Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that the forced landing had “threatened the life and safety” of Russian citizens aboard and that Russia “continues to insist on an explanation of the reasons for these actions by the Turkish authorities.”
Vyacheslav Davidenko, a spokesman for Rosoboronexport, the Russian company that has a monopoly on legal exports of finished weapons, denied any connection with what the Turks claimed to have found. “We don’t know what cargo was on that plane, but the cargo, whatever it was, does not belong to Rosoboronexport,” Mr. Davidenko said in a telephone interview.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry statement that described a harrowing ordeal for the passengers and crew of the Airbus A320 jetliner.
The ministry’s statement contended that the Turks had forced the plane to sit unattended on the tarmac at the airport in Ankara, the capital, for hours, leaving the occupants to wonder why. Later, after passengers had been escorted into a waiting lounge, “Turkish security authorities subjected the plane to search and assaulted the plane crew,” the ministry said. The plane and passengers were allowed to leave early Thursday.
“The plane was carrying no weapons or prohibited goods in accordance with the unblemished international reputation of the Syrian Arab Airlines,” the statement said. It called upon Turkey “to return the rest of the plane’s contents intact.”

Ellen Barry reported from Moscow, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Sebnem Arsu from Hatay, Turkey; Alan Cowell from Paris; and Christine Hauser from New York.