Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized Monday for the downing of a Russian warplane in November and called for Russia and Turkey to mend a bilateral relationship that has become openly hostile over the incident. In another concession Monday, a regional Turkish prosecutor announced that he would prosecute Alparslan Celik, a Turkish national fighting alongside Syrian rebels, for the death of the Russian pilot. “We had no wish or intention to down a plane of the Russian Federation,” a Kremlin press release quoted the Turkish communique as saying. On Monday, Erdogan wrote to Putin that he “would like to inform the family of the deceased Russian pilot that I share their pain and to offer my condolences to them. A rescue operation to save the pilot also ended in disaster, as a Russian marine was killed after rebels downed a rescue helicopter.

Source: Washington Post June 27, 2016 16:48 UTC