Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual state of the nation address at the Kremlin in Moscow on Thursday. “Apparently Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by taking their sanity”, he said.
Advertisement
“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.
The Kremlin dismissed these claims as “rubbish” and insists the aircraft had stayed in Syrian airspace, from where it is carrying out airstrikes.
“But if anyone thinks that after committing a treacherous war crime, the killing of our people, they will get away with (the ban on imports) of tomatoes or some restrictions on construction and other industries, they are deeply mistaken”.
“Turkey would have cause to regret its actions “more than once”, Mr Putin said”.
“The main consumer of this oil stolen from its legitimate owners Syria and Iraq is Turkey”. “For that money the bandits are recruiting mercenaries, buying weapons and staging cruel terror attacks aimed against our citizens, as well as citizens of France, Lebanon, Mali and other countries”.
Erdogan repeated that he would resign if Moscow proved the allegation and said it was actually Russians who were involved in oil dealings. That jet was shot down by Turkey after they claimed it crossed into Turkish airspace. “We’re their North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and a trusted partner”, he said.
But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not admit to profiting from oil deals with terrorists even if his face is “smeared with smuggled oil”, Antonov said.
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.
The Russian Defence Ministry provided maps on Wednesday claiming to show ISIL oil being smuggled into Turkey through PYD controlled areas, according to a reportin TRT World.
The pilot was killed and another Russian service member died rescuing the plane’s navigator.
A ministry official said Sergey Lavrov and Mevlut Cavusoglu would meet at an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) gathering in the Serbian capital Belgrade. If they do I would not remain on the presidential seat for one minute.
Russia – Turkey’s main energy supplier – is also imposing sanctions against Turkey that will hurt its food exports and has also told Russian tourists not to visit the country.
Advertisement
Britain’s parliament is set to vote on Wednesday to approve air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria after months of wrangling over whether enough opposition Labour lawmakers would back military action.
