(Istanbul) Turkey has closed its airspace to Russian planes bound for Syria, Turkish media reported on Saturday citing Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Posted at 2:07 p.m.
“We have closed the airspace to military planes from Russia — and also to civilian planes — flying to Syria,” Cavusoglu said, without specifying the reason for this decision.
The head of Turkish diplomacy said he passed it on to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who forwarded it to President Vladimir Putin.
The ban will be valid for three months, said the Turkish minister, with authorizations being renewed quarterly.
Russia, one of the main supporters of the Damascus regime since the start of the civil war in 2011, did not react immediately.
For some experts, this closure of Turkish airspace risks complicating the task of the Russian army, which is very present in Syria.
A member of NATO and an ally of Ukraine, Turkey has been trying since the beginning of the war in Ukraine to facilitate a mediation between Moscow and Kyiv, and has so far refused to join Western sanctions against Russia, keen to keep an open line with the Kremlin.
Turkey has thus twice hosted direct negotiations between the two parties, on March 10 at ministerial level in Antalya (south) and on March 29 in Istanbul.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has moved closer to Moscow in recent years after a series of setbacks and tensions with Westerners.
The two countries have even managed to overcome the crisis that pitted them after a Russian fighter plane was shot down by Turkey in 2015.