ISTANBUL \u2014 Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Tuesday his government was considering retaliatory measures against Moscow, with whom it is embroiled in a bitter dispute over Ankara’s shooting down of a Russian warplane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If we find it necessary, we will introduce retaliatory sanctions,” Davutoglu told members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), adding that cabinet had discussed possible measures at a meeting on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But we hope that the crisis with Russia will be overcome and there will be no need to resort to these measures,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are ready for all kinds of discussions with Russia but we will never accept being dictated to.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Moscow has imposed a series of economic sanctions on Ankara after Turkish fighter jets shot down a Su-24 bomber on the Syrian border on Nov. 24, sparking the biggest crisis between the two countries since the Cold War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia’s sanctions include a ban on the import of some Turkish foods and a halt on sales of Turkish holiday packages, a major blow to tourism in the Mediterranean country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mehmet Simsek, deputy prime minister in charge of the economy, has warned that the current tensions with Russia could cost Turkey’s economy $9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the latest escalation of tensions on Monday, Turkey summoned Russia’s ambassador to Ankara over images of a Russian serviceman brandishing a rocket launcher as his warship sailed through Turkish waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Turkish foreign ministry warned the ambassador that the Russian soldier’s holding the missile in the firing position had constituted a violation of the Montreux Convention on Turkish straits, which governs international traffic through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in Moscow’s first reaction to the incident, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the warship had not violated a “single article” the 1936 convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Protecting a ship is a legal right of any crew,” she said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ankara said it had no plans to revise the convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We currently have no preparation to that end,” Bilgic told a press conference Tuesday. But he warned that “anything could be subject to assessment due to developments.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Tuesday his government was considering retaliatory measures against Moscow, with whom it is embroiled in a bitter dispute over Ankara’s shooting down of a Russian warplane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":83161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":33,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-41365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"AMD7RNRSJJFXVMV7TENLYADDQQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/home\/2015\/12\/08\/pm-turkey-mulling-retaliatory-sanctions-on-russia\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n