Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state of the union address on Thursday and, as my colleague Andrew Roth reported, he reserved some of his most charged rhetoric for Turkey.
Advertisement
The shooting down by Turkish F-16 fighter jets of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border on November 24 has sparked the worst crisis in relations between Moscow and Ankara since the Cold War. “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.
“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”, he said, addressing lawmakers and top officials in an ornate Kremlin hall.
WATCH: Is Russia Doing More Harm Than Good In Syria? The official said he believed that smuggling operations have decreased over time and credited both the Turks and US military strikes for making it harder for ISIS-controlled fuel trucks to gather in one place and smuggle oil inside Syria.
Russia, for its part, has since threatened economic sanctions against Turkey, which includes the stoppage of an agreement for a pipeline that would have provided natural gas to Turkey.
Erdogan slammed the claims as “slander” and in turn accused Russian Federation of involvement with the IS oil trade, alleging that Turkey had evidence of that.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it was “a little ironic” for the Russian leader to point a finger at others.
Sputnik reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday December 2, during a visit to Serbia, that his country has said on many occasions that the oil being produced in the ISIS-occupied regions of Syria and Iraq is being sold through Turkey.
“We have seen significant swings in how much they [the Syrian government] are buying at any given point”, said the official, who added that buying “spiked” when there was an oil “crunch” in government-controlled areas.
“We did not hear anything new”.
The Russian and Turkish foreign ministers met in Belgrade on the sidelines of the OSCE meeting – the first senior-level meeting since the incident – but the exchange was frosty.
On Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country would not apologise to Russian Federation.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has accused Turkey’s leaders of “collusion” with ISIS, alluding to accusations that Turkey’s president benefits personally from the militants’ illegal oil trade. Syrian Turkmen rebels on the ground shot and killed the pilot as he parachuted to earth.
This sort of animosity is a far cry from just this September, when Erdogan was among a group of dignitaries accompanying Putin in Moscow at the inauguration of a new 0 million mosque, billed as the largest of its kind in Europe.
Advertisement
When asked why the US had not done something about the illegal shipments, the officer said the USA had to find a way to adequately warn the truck drivers involved in the shipments – who might be unaware of the shipment’s illegality – that they would be attacked by military aircraft if shipments proceeded.
