NATO will hold an emergency meeting on the shooting down of a Russian fighter plane by Turkey. This is the first time that a Nato country and Moscow have exchanged direct fire over the crisis in Syria.


Ankara and the Kremlin gave conflicting accounts of the incident, which appears to have occurred in an area near the Turkish-Syrian border straddling Iskenderun and Latakia.


The Turkish military said it scrambled two F-16 fighter jets after a plane penetrated Turkish airspace in the province of Hatay at 9.20am on Tuesday morning, warning it to leave 10 times in five minutes before it was shot down.


Russias defence ministry, in a series of tweets, confirmed a Russian Su-24 had been shot down, but insisted the plane had never left Syrian airspace and claimed that fire from the ground was responsible. At all times, the Su-24 was exclusively over the territory of Syria, the defence ministry said.