Russia rules out war with Turkey

Russia on Wednesday accused Turkey of a 'planned provocation' over the downing of a warplane on the Syrian border but pledged not to go to war as Nato-member Ankara sought to play down tensions.

As the diplomatic fallout from Tuesday's incident raged on, Moscow said Russian and Syrian special forces had rescued one of the pilots who ejected from the burning Russian plane but confirmed the second airman was dead.

The rescued pilot told state media that there was no prior warning from the Turks.

"There was no warning, not by radio exchange nor visually. There was no contact at all," Konstantin Murakhtin told Russian journalists at Moscow's base in Syria after being rescued by special forces.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ratcheted up the pressure after talking to Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu by phone in the first contact between the two sides since the plane went down.

"We have serious doubts about this being an unpremeditated act, it really looks like a planned provocation," Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow.

"We do not plan to go to war with Turkey, our attitude toward the Turkish people has not changed," Lavrov added, but warned that Moscow would "seriously reevaluate" relations with Ankara.

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered state-of-the art air defence missile systems to be deployed at a Russian air base in Syria, a move that raised the threat of a military confrontation between the Nato member and Moscow.

The S-400 missile systems will be sent to the Hemeimeem air base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, about 50km south of the border with Turkey. The systems have a range up to 400km and are capable of targeting Turkish jets with deadly precision. If Russia shot down a Turkish plane, Turkey could proclaim itself under attack and call for military assistance from its Nato allies.

Turkey, however, has sought to turn down the heat, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisting Ankara was simply defending its border.

"We have no intention to escalate this incident. We are just defending our security and the rights of our brothers," Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called Russia "our friend and our neighbour" and said Ankara did not want to strain ties with Moscow.

Turkey says the Su-24 warplane violated its airspace 10 times within a five-minute period, but Russia insisted it never strayed from Syrian territory.

The shooting also risks derailing efforts to bring peace to Syria that were gaining tentative momentum following the November 13 Paris attacks claimed by Daesh militants who control swathes of northern Syria.

US President Barack Obama said Washington's Nato ally had a right to defend its airspace but said his priority was to make sure the standoff did not escalate.

Following an extraordinary meeting of the alliance Tuesday, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said "diplomacy and de-escalation are important to resolve this situation".

Turkey's ambassador to the United Nations Halit Cevik said in a letter to the Security Council that two planes were involved, one of which was shot down while the other left Turkish airspace.

He said both had flown 2.19km into Turkish airspace for 17 seconds from 0724 GMT on Tuesday.

Ankara and Moscow are already on starkly opposing sides in the four-year Syrian civil war, with Turkey wanting to see the ouster of President Bashar al Assad while Russia is one of his last remaining allies.

Assad's other key ally Iran also slammed Ankara. Turkey's behaviour "sends the wrong message to the terrorists" in Syria, its Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Lavrov.

In an apparent response to Turkey's action, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow would send its most hi-tech S-400 air defence system to its airbase in Syria.

The Moskva guided missile cruiser will be stationed near the Syrian Mediterranean port of Latakia, the defence ministry said.

There has been fears of such a mid-air incident since Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September, to the consternation of nations already involved in a US-led anti-Daesh coalition.

Turkey had protested that Russia's campaign was aimed at hitting Syrian rebels and buttressing the Assad regime rather than hurting Daesh militants.

As the recriminations flew, Moscow said its special forces had helped rescue one of the pilots alongside Syrian troops and that the serviceman was now safe at a Russian air base in Syria.

"The operation ended successfully. The second pilot has been brought to our base. He is alive and well," Shoigu said.

Putin said the rescued pilot would be given a medal, along with those involved in the rescue operation and the other pilot who was shot dead by rebels after parachuting out.

Russia's military said another soldier had been killed in a failed bid to rescue the pair after one of his squadron's helicopters was damaged by gunfire and had to land.

In Moscow several hundred young activists hurled stones and eggs at Turkey's embassy and brandished anti-Turkish placards in a brief protest over the jet downing.