TEL Aviv _ Agencies
Israel on Friday accused Syria of firing rockets in a reckless manner, causing the downing of a Russian airliner in an accident that killed 15 Russians, while an Israeli delegation visiting Moscow blamed his country for the incident.
The Russian army blamed Israel for the incident, saying that an Israeli fighter was on a bombing mission and took a maneuver behind a Russian reconnaissance aircraft to escape the Syrian anti-fire.
However, the delegation strongly denied this vision of events. "The cause of the killing of 15 Russian soldiers and the beating of the plane was reckless in the use of Syrian anti-aircraft missiles, while Israeli planes had already returned to Israeli airspace," an Israeli army representative said on Friday.
More than 20 rockets were fired, the representative said, adding that Israel had notified Russia of its earlier attack "for more than a minute," indicating that enough time had been given to Russian planes to leave the area.
So far, Russia, the main supporter of the Syrian government in its long war, has succeeded in maintaining close ties with Israel despite Israel´s opposition to the Syrian leadership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin downplayed the accusation by the Russian army of responsibility and attributed the incident to "tragic circumstances," but a Kremlin statement was not issued in light of the new information provided by the Israeli delegation to Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Pskov said in a statement quoted by the Interfax news agency that Putin would be briefed on the information, but it is up to the Russian army to examine it in detail.
