Meanwhile, Russia Today has reported that Lavrov said he heard nothing new from his Turkish counterpart regarding Ankara’s position on the downing of the Russian warplane.
Advertisement
In a joint news conference with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev in the capital Baku, Davutoglu also said Turkey was willing to share details of its recent jet downing incident with Russian Federation.
Istanbul, Turkey’s most populous city that accounts for more than a quarter of national output, is nearly entirely dependent on Russian gas imports through the Trans-Balkan pipeline, according to the Turkish official. He suggested for the first time, however, that the plane was brought down because Turkey could not “morally” allow the plane to trespass on Turkish territory before bombing areas in Syria where ethnic Turkish populations live.
Lavov also commented on Turkey’s that “Russian citizens are involved in the purchase of oil from IS” to say it was unusual they came only after Russia presented its claims that the Turkish president and his family are involved in this illegal trade.
The pipeline will have a design capacity of 63 billion cubic metres per annum of natural gas.
Now they are trading bitter accusations over the downing of the Russian jet. Turkey has strongly rejected Russian allegations that it has any links with the ISIL militants.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the move as a war crime on Thursday and said the Kremlin would punish Ankara with additional sanctions.
It also slammed an array of economic sanctions on Turkey, including a ban on imports of fruit and vegetables and the sales of tourism packages.
“Let’s decrease tensions with our rhetoric”, Davutoglu said. Turkey is the second largest buyer of Russia’s natural gas, trailing only behind Germany. “Turks and Russians are two great peoples that shaped the history of Europe and Asia together”, he said.
Turkey offers the sole route to market to the expanding Kurdish oil industry, and Turkish companies provide builders and consumer goods.
Moscow imposed economic measures against Ankara after the attack, citing the growing terrorist threat originating in Turkey.
The Turkish strongman accused Moscow of “slander” and has rejected Putin’s demands to apologise over the plane incident, saying that Turkey was acting well within its rights to protect its border.
Advertisement
Turkish minister told that, at the meetings energy ministers agreed to launch TANAP project sooner, than it was initially planned.
