ANKARA // Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday he wanted to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin “face to face” on the sidelines of the climate summit in Paris on Monday.
Tensions are running high between the two countries after Turkey shot down a Russian plane over northern Syria on Tuesday, claiming the jet had entered its airspace.
Mr Erdogan said Ankara did not deliberately down the plane and dismissed Mr Putin’s criticism of the incident as “unacceptable”. The Russian president has described the incident as “treachery” and a “stab in the back”.
“We very sincerely recommend to Russia not to play with fire,” the president told supporters during a speech in Bayburt, north-east Turkey. “We really attach a lot of importance to our relations with Russia ... We don’t want these relations to suffer harm in any way.”
Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Mr Putin, said the Kremlin had received a request from Ankara regarding a possible meeting between the two leaders at the summit, and that the Russian president would be informed about it later on Friday.
However, Mr Ushakov also said Mr Putin has refused to contact the Turkish president because Ankara does not want to apologise for the downing of the Russian plane.
“We see Turkey’s unwillingness to simply apologise for the incident with the plane,” he said.
Also on Friday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Ankara had crossed the line by shooting down the plane and warned the incident could severely undermine Turkey’s interests.
“We believe that the Turkish leadership has crossed the line of what is acceptable,” Mr Lavrov said at the start of talks with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, in Moscow.
Ankara “risks putting Turkey in a most severe situation, with respect to both its long-term national interests and the situation in the region,” he said.
The pilot of the downed Russian plane, along with a special forces soldier sent to rescue him, were killed by Syrian rebels on the ground.
They were Moscow’s first combat deaths since it launched a bombing campaign in Syria on September 30.
* Agence France-Presse, Reuters
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
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