Erdogan also said Russian President Vladimir Putin had in the past spoken of the Turkish president’s “courage”.
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As British jets opened airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Germany prepared to send troops and aircraft to the region, Russia’s president called on the world Thursday to brandish “one powerful fist” in the fight against terrorism. “But if someone thinks that after committing heinous war crimes, the murder of our people, it will end with (an embargo on) tomatoes and limitations in construction and other fields then they are deeply mistaken”, Putin said.
Putin further evoked the term “Allah”, the Islamic and Arabic word for God, saying the Turkish political elite lacked wisdom and judgement. “We know who are stuffing pockets in Turkey and letting terrorists prosper from the sale of oil they stole in Syria”, Putin stated throughout the annual yearly state of the nation address. 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.
“We must leave all arguments and disagreements behind and make one powerful fist, a single anti-terror front, which would work on the basis of worldwide law under the aegis of the United Nations”, Putin said.
According to the same source, Turkish President Erdogan said that although Russian Federation is “slandering” Turkey with those serious accusations, he will refrain from retaliating to safeguard the relations between the two countries.
“We will not forget this complicity with terrorists”.
“Over 120 tons of weapons, 2,000 ISIS militants and approximately 250 vehicles moved from Turkey to Syria last week”, declared Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s joint military command center.
Turkey said the Russian SU-24 fighter plane intruded into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings to leave.
After Vladimir Putin accused Turkey to be allied with ISIS, the Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov has openly accused the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of being directly involved with ISIS’s illegal trade.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu were expected to meet briefly in Belgrade, Serbia, on the sidelines of of an Organisation for Security and Co-operation meeting.
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“Only Allah, most likely, knows why they did this”. But Erdogan also said Turkey had no intention of escalating the crisis and said the two countries still have potential for cooperation. I don’t understand why Turkey downed our jet.
