Turkey Says Its Patience With Russia 'Has A Limit': Report

Rome: Turkey's foreign minister said Ankara's patience with Russia "has a limit" after Moscow's "exaggerated" reaction to a weekend naval incident between the two countries, an Italian newspaper reported today.

A Russian destroyer fired warning shots at a Turkish vessel in the Aegean on Sunday to avoid a collision and summoned the Turkish military attache over the incident..

"Ours was only a fishing boat, it seems to me that the reaction of the Russian naval ship was exaggerated," Mevlut Cavusoglu told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview.

"Russia and Turkey certainly have to re-establish the relations of trust that we have always had, but our patience has a limit," Cavusoglu said.

The incident is likely to heighten tensions between the two nations who are at odds over Syria and Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane last month.

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Cavusoglu said Russia had already "put itself in a ridiculous position" with accusations by its President Vladimir Putin that Turkey had shot down the jet to protect oil supplies from ISIS.

"No-one believed it" he said.

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He also criticised Russia's military intervention in Syria, saying it was aimed at propping up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, not combating ISIS.

"Unfortunately Russia is not in Syria to fight terrorists," he said, adding that only 8 percent of its air strikes had been aimed at ISIS while 92 percent were against other groups hostile to Assad.

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Cavusoglu also said air strikes were not sufficient to defeat ISIS and soldiers on the ground were necessary, according to the interview.