'Nothing new' from Russia-Turkey talks on downed fighter jet

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had heard "nothing new" from his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu on Dec. 3 after the first high-level bilateral contact between the two countries since the Turkish airforce shot down a Russian jet on Nov. 24. 

"We met with the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry on his insistent request. We heard nothing new," Lavrov told a televised news conference. 

He said Russia had reiterated its own position during the meeting with Çavu?o?lu on the sidelines of a conference of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Serbian capital Belgrade. 

Meanwhile, Çavu?o?lu was quoted by Turkish state broadcaster TRT as saying it would be unrealistic to expect all problems to be solved with Russia after a single meeting, but that it was important to keep communication channels open. 

Çavu?o?lu told the OSCE conference: "The incident on the 24th of November ... should not be confused with our fighting against our common enemy of Daesh, terrorism and should not be abused for political objectives," using an Arabic term for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

Moscow and Ankara are deeply at odds over what happened when Turkey downed the Russian SU-24 fighter bomber near the Syrian border as it took part in the Kremlin's air campaign against militants in Syria.

President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's call to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a climate change conference in Paris on Nov. 30 was refused by Putin, who said Turkey has yet to apologize for shooting down the jet on the Syrian border. 

Erdo?an's earlier attempt to have a phone conversation with Putin on the day of the Russian jet's downing had also been rejected. ...