ANKARA
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Wednesday said Turkish authorities warned in advance the pilot of a Syrian passenger plane which was forced to land in Turkey last week on suspicions that it might be carrying military equipment.
"We have warned the plane that if entered the Turkish airspace it would have to land for search. It entered our airspace anyway so we grounded it," Davutoglu told a televised interview on a private Turkish news channel.
An Airbus A320 of the Syrian Arab Airlines was grounded last week on Wednesday while enroute to Damascus from Moscow with 37 passengers, 17 of whom were Russian nationals.
Turkish authorities confiscated part of the cargo aboard the plane for examination which they said contained "elements which are contrary to civilian aviation rules."
"Our goal is not to provoke an incident neither with Syria nor with Russia. We did what the international laws required us to do," Davutoglu said.
Davutoglu said the incident was never considered by Turkey as a problem with Russia, adding that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had admitted that Turkey had the right to search the plane.
