The Russian Defense Ministry is accusing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his family and his country’s leadership of being tied up in illegal trade in oil with the so-called Islamic State (IS), and that Turkey is the group’s chief customer.
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Vladimir Putin warned Turkish leaders in his annual state-of-the-nation address before Russia’s Federal Assembly yesterday, promising Ankara would regret having downed a Russian warplane near the Syrian border.
He added: “And evidently Allah chose to punish the ruling clique in Turkey, by depriving it of any reason or logic”.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister’s expressed Ankara’s condolences to Russia for the death of a Russian pilot when one of its warplanes was shot down by Turkey on the Syrian border last week.
“We won’t be rattling sabers”, he said.
If Turkey thinks it’s going to get away with “mere restrictions on the trade of tomatoes or some other restrictions … then they are grossly mistaken”, Putin said.
“When they asked us why we shipped, we replied that Russian Federation was our strategic partner”, Erdogan said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, on the sidelines of a conference of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the Serbian capital Belgrade.
The pause is the latest complication over Turkey’s role to have tested the patience of US war planners, who want a more assertive Turkish contribution – particularly in securing a section of border with Syria that is seen as a crucial supply route for Islamic State.
“We know for example who in Turkey fills their pockets and allows terrorists to make money from the stolen oil in Syria”.
He said Russian Federation had made “no sign” yet that the crisis would affect their energy partnership, including joint work on the Akkuyu nuclear plant in southern Turkey.
USA state department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday that Washington rejected the premise that the Turkish government was in league with the militants to smuggle oil, saying it saw no evidence to support such an accusation. The US also said it did not believe Erdogan was involved.
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And before setting of on a trip to Azerbaijan the the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Russian Federation is employing old Iron Curtain tactics.
