“We know that Turkey is filling its pocket and allows terrorists to earn money by selling oil stolen from Syria”, he said.
Advertisement
Turkey will regret “more than once” about its shooting down of a Russian bomber jet near the Syrian-Turkish border, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, adding Moscow would not ignore Ankara’s “aiding of terrorists”.
Referring to ISIS by the Arabic term Daesh, he said: “Nobody has the right to slander Turkey by saying Turkey is buying Daesh oil”.
“They presented aerial photographs and satellite images that they say show long lines of tanker trucks carrying the oil to depots and refineries in Turkey”, Corey says.
Antonov, meanwhile, said that IS militants make $2 billion a year from the illegal oil trade, and he squarely put the personal blame on Erdogan.
Toner said Turkey had begun steps to seal an exposed section of its frontier with an IS-controlled region of Syria through which much of the trade passes. “What a marvelous family business!”
Despite the tensions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he is prepared to meet Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu at a conference in the Serbian capital Belgrade this week.
Russian Federation on Wednesday accused the family of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of involvement in the purchase of oil from the Islamic State.
Russia and Turkey have been locked in an angry dispute since Turkey shot down a Russian jet last month.
Russian Federation quickly said it would be forced to react to Nato’s expansion eastward, with the invitation to the small Balkan country adding to bad blood between Moscow and the West over a host of issues including Ukraine.
Reports in the past from Turkey’s border with Syria have repeatedly said that Islamic State was smuggling oil, a key source of its revenues, to underground dealers in Turkey. State Department spokeswoman, Elizabeth Trudeau, said that based on the information given, the Russian warplane was indeed flying in Turkish airspace. Moscow already claimed that Turkey benefited from IS oil sales.
This photo made from the footage taken from Russian Defense Ministry official website on November 18, 2015, shows oil refinement facilities hit during the attack of Russian warplanes in Syria.
Advertisement
According to Deputy Minister for Defence Anatoly Antonov, Russia was aware of three main oil smuggling routes to Turkey.
