ANKARA \u2014 Turkish armed forces on Saturday shot down a Syrian helicopter that violated Turkey’s airspace in the south of the country, the Turkish defense minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“A Syrian helicopter was downed that violated the border for a period of five minutes within a seven mile (11 kilometer) limit,” Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz was quoted as saying by the Dogan news agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syrian state television had earlier indicated the aircraft was a drone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Having rightly fulfilled their duty, I congratulate the armed forces and kiss the eyes of them all,” Yilmaz said, using a traditional Turkish expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He did not give any further details on the helicopter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incident happened in the area of the Cilvegozu border crossing in the Hatay region of southern Turkey on the Syrian border, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Military sources quoted earlier by Turkish media said it could have been a plane, helicopter or unmanned drone that had been shot down by the Turkish F-16s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“At the moment, investigations are being made,” a source told the Hurriyet daily, saying the targeted craft had broken into three pieces and crashed on the Syrian side of the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syria meanwhile vehemently denied it could have been a manned aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is not true that Turkish fighter jets shot down a Syrian plane. What was shot down was a small drone flying nearby,” Syrian state TV said, citing a military source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has emerged as one of the main opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying his exit is key to solving the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turkey’s forces in March 2014 shot down a Syrian warplane, and the air force shot down a Syrian helicopter in September 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Turkish armed forces on Saturday shot down a Syrian helicopter that violated Turkey’s airspace in the south of the country, the Turkish defense minister said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":114014,"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-52980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"HM2HTFLEQJEBJBZD53N7ZWO2TI","arc_canonical_url":"\/home\/2015\/05\/16\/turkey-says-it-downs-syrian-helicopter\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n