Damascus confirmed its anti-air defenses had downed a Turkish fighter jet on Friday, as it stressed that the plane had violated the Syrian airspace.

Damascus confirmed its anti-air defenses had downed a Turkish fighter jet on Friday, as it stressed that the plane had violated the Syrian airspace.

Meanwhile, Ankara conceded that the jet might have violated the Syrian airspace, with President Abdullah Gul said the violation was not ill-intentioned.

“An unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters,” Syrian state news agency quoted a military spokesman as saying.

 “So the Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery, hitting it directly as it was 1 kilometer away from land, causing it to crash into Syrian territorial waters west of Om al-Tuyour village in Lattakia province, 10 kilometers from the beach.”

The spokesman added that the target turned out to be a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian airspace and was dealt with according to laws observed in such cases.

The spokesman also said that the two countries' naval forces' commands have established contact, and Syrian naval ships along with the Turkish side are searching for the two missing pilots.

For his part, Gul said Saturday the jet fighter shot down by Syria might have violated Syrian airspace.
"It is routine for jet fighters to sometimes fly in and out over (national) borders ... when you consider their speed over the sea," Gul told Anatolia news agency.

"These are not ill-intentioned things but happen beyond control due to the jets' speed."

The president also said contacts were under way with Syria though Turkey withdrew its diplomats from its embassy in Damascus in March, and expelled the Syrian diplomats from the Ankara embassy after the escalating violence.

"We withdrew our envoy from Syria for security reasons. This does not mean that we have no contacts (with Damascus)," Gul also said.