ANKARA (Sputnik) — Speaking with Turkey's NTV broadcaster, the deputy prime minister said preliminary data indicates that the airstrike was caused by an "error in coordination."
"This is an entirely unintended incident. It is very important that the distinguished [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has informed of the accident, and the position that Russia displayed after the incident is very important," Kurtulmus said.
"In any case, it is a completely accidental incident, an accident, but how this could happen within the existing coordination will become clear," Kurtulmus said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that poor coordination was the reason for an unintentional Russian airstrike killing Turkish soldiers near Syria's al-Bab, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian bombers had been on a mission to destroy Daesh terrorists' positions near al-Bab, where Turkish soldiers had been accidentally bombed.
On Friday, the Kremlin spokesman said that wrong coordinates of Turkish army's locations provided to Russia resulted in a deadly Russian airstrike on Turkish army's positions in al-Bab.