Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu today accused Moscow of running a “Soviet propaganda machine” with lies straight out of the Pravda newspaper after Russian officials claimed Ankara traded oil with the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria. “We know what needs to be done”.
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The downing of the warplane on November 24 triggered a tense standoff between Russian Federation and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey, and Moscow has imposed a raft of economic sanctions on Ankara in retaliation. “And evidently Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason”, he said.
The Russian President branded the downing of the jet on the Turkish-Syrian border as a “heinous war crime”, vowing Turkey would “regret what they’ve done for a long time”.
“We will be reminding [them] again about what they’ve done and they’ll be regretting it – we know what to do”, he added.
Turkey said the plane violated its airspace for 17 seconds despite repeated warnings; Russian Federation denies that.
“The KRG exports its oil via pipelines and tankers to Turkey for sale to buyers around the world”, Cevdet said. “The terrorists are using these receipts to recruit mercenaries, buy weapons and plan inhuman terrorist attacks against Russian citizens and against people in France, Lebanon and Mali”.
He said: “We are not planning to engage in military sabre-rattling”.
“But if anyone thinks that having committed this very bad war crime, the murder of our people, that they are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on construction and other sectors, they are sorely mistaken”. The Turkish minister said it would be unrealistic to expect all problems with Russian Federation could be solved in one meeting but it was important to keep communications channels open.
Russian officials did not give proof that Erdogan or his family is linked to IS oil trade during the defense briefing, and claimed they were only unveiling “part of the evidence” for now.
The Kremlin has revealed satellite images that it claims prove Turkey traded oil with Islamic State (IS) militants at a defense briefing, reports BBC World News.
Negotiations over the project to pipe Russian gas to Turkey under the Black Sea have been floundering since Moscow launched air strikes in Syria in late September in support of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which Ankara fiercely opposes.
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In another development on Wednesday, Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi, the spokesman for Russia’s general staff, said Moscow’s ongoing air campaign against Takfiri elements has targeted Daesh oil infrastructure in Syria and halved the militants’ profits.
