ANKARA--Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has accused the leader of the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas of "treason" by saying in Moscow that he thought Turkey's shooting down of the Russian warplane last month was "not right".

On his visit to the Russian capital this week, Demirtas stressed that his party did not agree with what the Turkish government was doing, reportedly telling Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that, "From the very first days, we declared that as an opposition party in the country, we do not support the position of making relations with Russia worse."

Russian news agencies covering the meeting quoted Demirtas saying, 'We criticized the actions of the [Turkish] government when the Russian plane was shot down."

Davutoglu had already criticized Demirtas on Tuesday for making the trip in the first place,

"Why are they [the HDP] going at such a time to a country with which we are having a crisis because of their violation of this nation's airspace?" he asked.

Lavrov also said that Moscow is ready to work with Kurds fighting against Islamic State terrorists in Syria.

Turkey is wary of Russia backing the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and its possible advances against ISIS forces on its frontier with Syria.

Rudaw