It banned imports of some Turkish foodstuffs as part of a sanctions package, and on Wednesday Russia’s defence ministry said it had proof that President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq.
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Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov and his colleagues on Wednesday showed foreign defense attaches based in Moscow satellite images purporting to show IS transporting oil to Turkey.
“Maybe I’m being too blunt, but one can only entrust control over this thieving business to one’s closest associates”. What a marvellous family business!
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Russian Federation of slander for its allegations that Turkey and Erdogan’s family are buying oil from Islamic State (IS) militants.
Delivering the annual state of the nation address to both houses of Parliament in Moscow, Russia’s President Putin said “probably Allah alone knows why they did it”, reports the BBC.
Meanwhile Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier on Thursday vowed never to forget Turkey’s downing of one of Moscow’s warplanes, as he lashed out once again at the leadership in Ankara over the incident. He also appeared to be supporting Turkey, saying it is Turkey’s right to protect its borders and airspace and expressed the US’s commitment to “Turkey’s security and its sovereignty”.
“It is precisely with this money that the bandits recruit mercenaries, buy arms and organize inhuman terrorist acts aimed against our citizens, the citizens of France, Lebanon, Mali and other countries”.
According to him, Ankara also failed to respond to Moscow’s concerns about the free movement of terrorists as a result of the visa-free regime of the Russian Federation and Turkey (Russia has now abolished visa-free travel for Turkish citizens – Editor).
“This oil enters the territory of Turkey in huge quantities, on an industrial scale along a living pipeline of thousands of oil tankers”, he said. “And most importantly, it does not plan to stop them”, Sergei Rudskoy, deputy head of the Russian military’s General Staff, told reporters.
Turkish officials have said the plane violated Turkish airspace and had been warned repeatedly. “If these responses continue we will take our own measures”, he said, without elaborating.
Lavrov told reporters after talks with his Cypriot counterpart in Nicosia he will meet with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu “to hear what he has to say”, adding he spoke to Çavuşoğlu by phone the day after Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft but only heard “some excuses”.
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Following Monday’s meeting with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a climate summit in Paris, Putin said they have a shared understanding on how to move toward a political settlement in Syria and discussed efforts to compile a list of extremist groups and another one of members of legitimate political opposition.
