Both the U.S.-led coalition and Russian warplanes have struck the extremists’ oil facilities and Russia has drawn heated global attention to the issue by accusing Turkish authorities of profiting from oil trade with IS – allegations Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has strongly denied.
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“We are not planning to engage in military sabre-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. Turkey took action on November 24th, shooting down a Russian war plane near its border.
German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier described the situation as “too risky, and freedom and stability too fragile, for us to counter each other” – an apparent reference to the spat caused by last week’s downing of the Russian plane by Turkey.
The Turkish and Russian foreign ministers, meanwhile, met on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, on Thursday, the first at a senior level between the two countries since the plane’s downing. Unlike Russia, however, Erdogan never released his evidence.
“According to our data, the top political leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – is involved in this criminal business”, Antonov said, adding that, “Turkey is the main consumer of the oil stolen from its rightful owners, Syria and Iraq”.
“No one can blame Turkey, no one can expect an apology from Turkey”, Davutoglu said in the speech, which was televised on Turkish television. “But if someone thinks that after committing heinous war crimes, the murder of our people, it will end with tomatoes and limitations in construction and other fields, then they are deeply mistaken”, Putin said.
“In the Cold War period there was a Soviet propaganda machine”.
One was killed while parachuting to the ground – in circumstances yet to be fully explained – while a second was rescued by Russian and Syrian forces from the Syrian side of the border.
“Today, we are presenting only some of the facts that confirm that a whole team of bandits and Turkish elites stealing oil from their neighbors is operating in the region”, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told a Moscow news conference Wednesday. Cavusoglu said “it would be unrealistic to say that the problem has been overcome”, but added “our hope is that they avoid making unfounded claims”.
Immediately after the speech Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced the suspension of talks between Ankara and Moscow over the major TurkStream pipeline project.
Moscow says its warplanes have been targeting terrorist groups near Syria’s border with Turkey, while Ankara says the Russian airstrikes have been aimed at moderate militant groups comprised of ethnic Turks who oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. “Many people there are from Russian Federation, and if they win in Syria, sooner or later they will come to Russian Federation as well and will continue with their terrorist activities here”.
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“Only Allah knows why they did it, and I guess Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by stripping it of its sanity”, Putin said about the downing of the jet in an hour-long address to Russian lawmakers and other public figures.
