Su-24 Incident Greatly Damaged Russia-Turkey Relations

The incident with Russia’s Su-24 warplane shot down by Turkey greatly damaged Russia-Turkey relations, Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of the Federation Council of Russia, said, RIA Novosti reported.

"This greatly damaged Russia-Turkey relations,” she said. “We considered Turkey as our neighbor, partner, friendly country. We developed mutual economic cooperation. Turkey did everything to destroy the mutually beneficial cooperation with the Russian Federation."

She said that this situation has caused deep resentment in the Russian society.

"I know that Russian tourists refuse to go to Turkey,” she said. “This is approximately four million tourists a year, which is around $1 billion in Turkey’s revenues obtained from the Russian tourism."

Russia-Turkey relations deteriorated after the incident with the Russian Su-24 warplane, shot down by the Turkish Air Force Nov. 24. (Cihan/Trendaz)