Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has tried to ease tensions with Turkey, stating that he regrets the recent downing of a Turkish military jet that entered Syrian airspace, although he didn't offer an apology.
He told Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper: "I say 100% 'if only we had not shot it down’”.
The plane crashed into the eastern Mediterranean on 22 June and its two pilots are still missing.
Following the incident Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan put his armed forces on heightened alert, telling parliament that if Syrian troops threatened Turkey's borders, they would be seen as a military threat.
He admitted that the jet strayed inside Syrian airspace but said it was merely testing Turkish radar defences, that the pilots immediately changed course and that missiles were launched without any warning.
Nato backed him up, deploring the incident as “unacceptable” and “another example of the Syrian authorities’ disregard for international norms”.
Assad, however, during an interview that lasted two and a half hours, defended his country’s response by claiming that the aircraft was discovered in a corridor previously used three times by Israeli jets during bombing raids.
It’s thought they destroyed a partially built nuclear reactor site.
"Soldiers shot it down because we did not see it on our radars and we were not informed about it,” he said.
Assad also argued that Turkey should have notified his forces that the jet would be in the area and meant no harm - and complained that there wasn’t enough dialogue between military officers on each side.
He went on to stress that he had no desire for the tension between the countries to escalate.
"We will not allow it to turn into an armed conflict that would harm both countries," he said. "We did not build up our forces on the Turkish border and we will not."
Turkey, meanwhile, has been reinforcing its military presence along the Syrian border, with rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns, according to BBC News.
On Sunday, it said it scrambled six F-16 fighter jets to intercept incoming Syrian helicopters.