Turkey confirms Syria shot down F-4 military jet, Erdogan: "Turkey will determinedly take necessary steps" in response.

Turkey confirms Syria shot down F-4 military jet, Erdogan: "Turkey will determinedly take necessary steps" in response.(AA) And (HD).Syria shot down a Turkish military fighter jet in the eastern Mediterranean on Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s office said in a statement, amid earlier ambiguity over whether the plane had been downed by Syrian defense forces or had crashed. “As a result of information obtained from the evaluation of our concerned institutions and from within the joint search and rescue operations with Syria, it is understood that our plane was brought down by Syria,” Erdogan’s office said. Turkey would decide on its response to the incident once all of the details became clear, it said in the statement, issued after a two-hour meeting between Erdogan, members of his cabinet and the military. His office also said that search and rescue operations were continuing for two missing pilots. Following Erdogan's statement, the Syrian military said it shot down the Turkish military aircraft "over Syrian territorial waters." "Our air defences confronted a target that penetrated our air space over our territorial waters pre-afternoon on Friday and shot it down. It turned out to be a Turkish military plane," a statement by the military circulated on state media said. Earlier on Friday, Erdogan said he could not confirm whether Syria had admitted to shooting down a Turkish warplane in the Mediterranean. While reports had circulated that Syria had apologized for the incident, claiming it was a mistake, Erdogan told a press conference in Ankara that he had no firm information on the apology. He had also said he could not confirm whether the plane had been shot down or crashed. Earlier, the Turkish army said it lost radar and radio contact with one of its aircrafts on the Mediterranean near neighboring Syria, and a television station said it had crashed in Syrian territorial waters. The conflicting, or perhaps extra cautious, statements from the Turkish PM came after Erdogan was reportedly quoted by Haberturk daily newspaper earlier on Friday as saying: "Syria immediately offered a very serious apology for the incident and admitted it was a mistake." He had also been quoted by the paper as saying the two pilots of the Turkish F-4 fighter jet were alive after the incident. “At this moment the air force and navy are conducting search and rescue operations in the western Mediterranean and luckily our pilots are alive, we have just lost a plane,” he told journalists while travelling back from Brazil. In Ankara, Erdogan told reporters there is no news on the pilots and Turkish ships and helicopters were searching for the missing pilots together with Syrian ships. The senior adviser to the Turkish president, Arshad Harmozlo, had said that the statement from the Turkish news report was baseless, and instead reiterated Erdogan’s comments. “We have no confirmation surrounding the Syrian apology or even that Syria has shot down the jet … The rescue operation to find the pilots continues,” he told Al Arabiya in a telephone interview. A statement following a two-hour security meeting led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the warplane that went missing near Syria was downed by Syrian forces and that the two Turkish pilots remain missing. It said Turkey "will determinedly take necessary steps" in response, without saying what they would be.Given the breakdown in relations between the two countries over the Syrian conflict, this incident has the potential to provoke a serious crisis, the BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul reports. Much will depend on whether or not the Turkish pilots have survived, our correspondent says. If not, public anger might push the government into some kind of punitive action against Syria, he adds. Turkey has joined nations such as the US in saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad should step down because of the uprising in his country. Turkey also has set up refugee camps on its border for more than 32,000 Syrians who have fled the fighting. "Following the evaluation of data provided by our related institutions and the findings of the joint search and rescue efforts with Syria, it is understood that our plane was downed by Syria," the statement said, without providing other details. It was not clear what action Turkey might take, but after a cross-border shooting by Syrian forces earlier this year Turkey said it would not tolerate any action that it deemed violating its security. The downing of the F4 plane was likely to further escalate tensions. Turkey's military provided no details on the plane's mission, but some Turkish TV reports said it was on a reconnaissance flight. Erdoğan said the plane went down in the Mediterranean Sea about 8 miles (13 kilometers) away from the Syrian town of Latakia. Four Turkish gunboats and three helicopters were searching for the pilots and wreckage of the plane. Earlier Friday in Lebanon, Hezbollah's Manar TV reported that Syrian forces shot down the Turkish plane, citing unidentified Syrian security sources. Hezbollah is closely allied with Syria. DamPress and other Syrian news agencies reported at 16:00 local time Friday that two military aircraft infiltrated Syrian airspace over Latakia and broke the sound barrier while flying low in threatening formation. One was hit by Syrian anti-air fire and the second escaped.Read the full story here, here and here and BBC.