Russian airforce has struck almost 1,500 targets all over Syria over the past nine days, the military said, its bombers now flying under cover of strategic fighter jets following the downing of a plane by Turkey last week.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin called Turkey “accomplices of terrorists” and warned of “serious consequences”.
A diplomatic war has erupted between the two countries after the Russian jet was shot down on November 24 after Turkey said it encroached into its air space.
Moscow deployed long-range air defense missile systems to its base in Syria 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the border with Turkey and slammed an array of economic sanctions on Turkey, including a ban on imports of fruit and vegetables and the sales of tour packages. “Allah chose to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of reason and common sense”, he said in his annual state-of-the-nation address.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Thursday accused Moscow of running a “Soviet propaganda machine”.
The president also lashed out at what he said were Moscow’s attempts to escalate the crisis.
“We are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling (with Turkey)”, said Putin, after asking for a moment’s silence for the two Russian servicemen killed in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and for Russian victims of terrorism. Sijbren de Jong, a Russian Federation expert at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, concurs: “The only place other than China that Russian Federation says it is pivoting toward is Turkey”. “And of course we know why this happened”.
The move, disclosed to Reuters by a US official, is aimed at allowing time for Turkish-Russian tensions to ease.
“We have received additional information which unfortunately confirms that this oil, produced in areas controlled by [ISIL] and other terrorist organisations, is transported on an industrial scale to Turkey”.
Sherko Jawdat, the chairman of the KRG Parliament’s Energy Committee, said on Thursday that the oil tankers shown in the aerial photos and footage presented by Russian Federation as evidence of the alleged trade are in fact carrying oil from the KRG to Ceyhan terminal in southern Turkey.
“They were called Pravda lies”, he said, referring to the daily newspaper that was the mouthpiece of the Communist Party.
Relations between the various Kurdish groups and Turkey are also highly strained, lending further implausibility to the idea that Turkey is buying oil from ISIS via Kurdish groups. Responding those allegations on Monday, Erdogan had said that he would be ready to resign if Russian Federation managed to prove the allegations.
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The ruthless leader also accused the country of buying oil from savage ISIS – a claim Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vehemently denied. The Russian leader, throughout the speech, talked about the US and the West just once – that too in a passing, indirect reference.
