“We need to gather around the table and talk, but no one should expect Turkey to back down on matters related to its air space, territorial waters and land borders”.
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President Vladimir Putin has said Turkey downed the Russian warplane in order to protect its oil trade with the extremist group.
According to our data, the top political leadership of the country – President Erdoğan and his family – is involved in this criminal business.
Antonov also drew attention to the fact that the son of the Turkish President heads one of the largest energy companies, whereas Erdogan’s son-in-law serves as the Minister for Energy. “What a marvelous family business!”
These oil revenues are used not only to enrich the Turkish leadership but to arm terrorists as well, the General Staff stated.
“Look what they’re doing”. Cut to Wednesday’s news conference in Moscow: Officials presented photographs of what they said wereoil-delivery convoys at Syria’s border with Turkey.
Mr Erdogan yesterday vowed that Turkey would not retaliate against the sanctions. Otherwise Russia has provided no evidence of its accusations, though Turkish officials said they are attempting to reduce oil smuggling.
The United States has strongly denied a Russian claim that the Turkish government buys smuggled Syrian oil from the Islamic State jihadist group. The worst confrontation between Russian Federation and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member since the Cold War has complicated French President Francois Hollande’s efforts to forge an alliance with Putin and the USA against Islamic State following last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
Russian military chiefs have publicly accused the Turkish government of funnelling millions of dollars in illicit oil revenues to Isil terrorists in Syria and Iraq, in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two countries. “And we have every reason to believe that the decision on whether to shoot down our plane was dictated by the desire to ensure the safety of these oil supply routes”, Putin said.
“The communities that were mentioned at the news briefing, such as Azaza, on the West Bank of the Euphrates, on the border with Turkey, and the port of Iskenderun, where everything is concentrated looked more than a convincing version”, he said.
“No one has a right to engage in slander against Turkey by saying that Turkey is buying oil from Daesh (IS)”, he said on a visit to Qatar. The ministry claims that oil from that area crosses into eastern Turkey via the border city of Al-Quamishli before being processed at the Batman refinery in eastern Turkey.
“There is no inspection of the vehicles carried out… on the Turkish side”, said Rudskoy.
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The effects on Russian Federation go beyond losing a quarter of the Turkish LNG market, which will apparently be replaced by US imports.
