LUXEMBOURG, October 15 - RAPSI. The incident of the passenger aircraft which was forced to land in Ankara will not affect Russian-Turkish relations in any way, said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a statement issued to journalists on Sunday.

He stressed that the cargo on board the plane "belonged to a Russian organization and was being taken to Syria."

"It was legal cargo and it was being legally transported," he said. Russia is still waiting to hear Turkey's opinion on what happened, Lavrov added.

His Luxembourg counterpart Jean Asselborn said that "Turkey and Russia are old friends and the European Union will do its best to keep these friends together."

The Syrian plane flying from Moscow to Damascus was forced to land in Ankara on Wednesday night. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the plane carried military-purpose cargo in breach of civil aviation rules. The aircraft also reportedly had 35 passengers on board, including 17 Russians.

Earlier, the media reported that a government source said that Turkey must have known about the cargo - 12 boxes of components for air defense radars - and so they sent two F-16 fighters to intercept the plane.

After the meeting between the Russian president and the Security Council members on Friday, Lavrov said that the cargo on board the Syrian plane was dual-purpose equipment, but not prohibited by any international conventions.