Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu today revealed that he personally gave the order to down the Russian Su-24 fighter jet that lead to the death of one pilot.
“Despite all the warnings, we had had to destroy the aircraft” Davutoğlu told a meeting of his AK party. “The Turkish Armed Forces carried out orders given by me personally”
https://youtu.be/pb15m3VoJ2Q
Both Davutoğlu and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is the commander in chief of the nation’s armed forces, continued to defend the decision to shoot down the Russian plane saying that his country had the right to defend its national airspace and insisting that the Su-24 had made an incursion into Turkish territory and was downed while still inside Turkey’s airspace.
“The Allied assessments we have got from several Allies during the day are consistent with information we have been provided with from Turkey,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporter at press conference. “So the information we have from other Allies is consistent with what we have got from Turkey.”
