Russian warship fires warning shots at Turkish fishing vessel in Aegean Sea

Baku. 14 December. REPORT.AZ/ Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that its navy destroyer Smetlivy "fired warning shots for a Turkish vessel in the Aegean Sea to avoid a collision," and Turkey's military attache in Moscow was summoned to the ministry over the incident, Report informs.

Media outlets in Russia reported that the vessel, variably reported as a fishing boat and a large civilian ship, did not respond to calls to change course to avoid collision some 22 kilometers from the Greek Aegean island of Lemnos between Turkey and Greece. Upon failure to heed the warnings, the Russian crew fired small arms, and the vessel eventually changed course while only some 600 meters away from the destroyer.

The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, regarding the incident, said that the ministry would release a statement after holding talks with the Turkish fishermen, according to various media reports. He said, "We do not favor tension, [this incident] needs to be overcome through dialogue."

"We have seen the Russian statement," Çavuşoğlu told reporters in Rome, where he had been following an international conference on Libya.

"But we are always saying: 'We are not in favor of tension'. We are in favor of overcoming tension through dialogue," he added, stating that Turkey's initiatives following "November 24's sad event" - the downing of a Russian warplane - had always been in that direction.