Russia on Thursday said that NATO knew but would not provide any opinion over the downing of its warplane by Turkey last month, which it claimed was done on purpose.
Alexander Grushko, Moscow's permanent representative to NATO, said he provided NATO's Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow with information that showed Ankara intentionally shot down the Russian Sukhoi Su-24M Fencer jet on Nov. 24, Rawstory reported.
"NATO prefers not to go in detail what was the reason for Turkey's decision to launch a missile to down a plane which was flying in Syria's airspace and which posed no threat to Turkey," Grushko said, according to TASS news agency.
The envoy added that Turkey's decision to shoot down the plane went against NATO's rules.
"NATO, which gave no principled assessment of this illegal act and, as a matter of fact, politically covered for Ankara as the member of the alliance, thus shares responsibility for the incident. Once again, we see that political considerations are getting the upper hand over objectivity and mere common sense," Grushko reportedly said.
The Russian warplane was shot downed by a Turkish F-16 jet. One of its two pilots was reportedly shot dead by Syrian rebels while parachuting. The other pilot was rescued by Russian troops.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the bombing and called Turkey "accomplices of terrorists,'' the Guardian reported.
The U.S.-led coalition last Thursday said it stood in solidarity with Turkey, which brought down the Russian warplane after allegedly giving repeated warnings to Russia over the violation of its airspace.
Following his meeting with Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan, U.S. President Barack Obama called on Russia and Turkey to reduce tensions, but stated that Turkey is a NATO ally and that it "supports Turkish rights to defend itself and its airspace and its territory,'' according to Agence France-Presse.
"We all have a common enemy and that is ISIL and I want to make sure we focus on that threat,'' Obama said adding that any problem should be solved through the "diplomatic language.''
But Russia demanded an apology from Turkey for "deliberately' downing the plane.
On Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country would not apologise to Russia. He also warned that such incidents would remain a risk if Russia and NATO continue their air campaigns separately against the ISIS group in Syria.
Moscow has stepped up its operations in Syria after ISIS claimed responsibility for bringing down a passenger plane late October killing all 224 people aboard. Its warplanes are now reportedly equipped with air-to-air missiles to counter enemy jet fighters.
"Today [Monday], Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers have made their first sortie equipped not only with high explosive aviation bombs and hollow charge bombs, but also with short- and medium-range air-to-air missiles," said Igor Klimov, a spokesman for the Russian Air Force, according to RT.com.
