WAR: TURKEY STABS RUSSIA IN THE BACK,GUNNED DOWN A RUSSIA WARPLANE. READ FULL DETAILS....

Turkey and Russia exchanged bellicose language after the downing of the plane, raising fears in the international community that the brutal Syrian conflict could spiral into something much wider.

The Russian plane was warned numerous times beforehand, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.

There was no ISIS presence along that border area, but there were Turkmen there, Erdogan said. So anyone who bombs that area attacks "our brothers and sisters -- Turkmen," Erdogan said in Ankara. (Turkmen are a Turkic-speaking, traditionally nomadic people who live primarily in Central Asia, but a small minority of them can be found in the Middle East, primarily in northern Iraq, Iran and Turkey.)

Erdogan said the plane incident was not something Turkey wanted to see happen, and "this does not indicate any animosity" toward any country.

It's been Turkey's cool approach that has prevented similar incidents up to now, he added.

Turkey's ambassador to the United States, Serdar Kilic, tweeted: "Understand this: Turkey is a country whose warnings should be taken seriously and listened to. Don't test Turkey's patience. Try to win its friendship."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the downing of the Russian plane would have "serious consequences for Russia's relationship with Turkey."

The shooting down of the plane, Putin said, "represents a stab in the back by the terrorists' accomplices. I can't describe what has happened today in any other way. Our plane was downed over Syrian territory by an air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16 jet.

"The plane fell on Syrian territory 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away from the Turkish border. It was flying 1 kilometer away from the Turkish border when it was attacked. In any case, neither our pilots nor our jet posed any threat to Turkey. That is obvious. They were carrying out an operation fighting against ISIL in Northern Latakia." (ISIL is another acronym for ISIS.)

NATO's governing body, the North Atlantic Council, said it would hold an emergency meeting in Brussels at 5 p.m. (11 a.m. ET) on Tuesday. The council is made up of the NATO ambassadors of the 28 countries that are members of the alliance and is NATO's highest decision-making body.

Turkey is a member of NATO, which considers an attack on one of its members to be an attack on them all.

Not long after the plane was shot down Tuesday morning, spitting fire and diving nose-first toward the ground, Turkey claimed responsibility. Turkey's semiofficial outlet, the Anadolu Agency, quoted Turkish presidential sources as saying the Russian Su-24 was "hit within the framework of engagement rules" in Syria's Bayirbucak area, near the border with Turkey.

Russian officials denied the plane had violated Turkish airspace.

Both pilots ejected from the plane, but their fate is unknown, Sputnik reported. ISIS does not operate in the area where the plane went down. But other rebel groups do, including al Nusra Front -- al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria -- along with more moderate U.S.-backed groups.

Abu Ibrahim al-Sheghri, the military leader in the 10th coastal brigade and part of the Turkmen Mountain Military Operation Room,said that the body of one of the pilots had been found in the Nibh Almur area of Syria.The brigade is searching for the other pilot in the same area, he said.

And Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, Turkey's national public broadcaster, aired footage of what it said were Russian helicopters searching for the pilots.

Early this year, Moath al-Kasasbeh, a Jordanian pilot whose plane crashed in Syria the previous December, was burned alive by ISIS while he was trapped in a cage.