Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused Turkey of a “treacherous war crime” and has vowed to make Turkey “feel sorry” for its actions.
Advertisement
Putin knows that to engage in a war with a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member would be madness, provoking other countries in the US-led military alliance to come to Turkey’s defence. “And evidently Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason”, he said. “We will reveal it to the world”, the Turkish leader said in a televised speech in Ankara.
“For that money the bandits are recruiting mercenaries, buying weapons and staging cruel terror attacks aimed against our citizens, as well as citizens of France, Lebanon, Mali and other countries”, he said.
A Russian Defense Ministry official said Wednesday that there were three main routes for transporting Islamic State oil into Turkey and displayed stills and video footage of what he said were trucks shipping IS oil on these routes.
“We have always deemed betrayal the worst and most shameful thing to do, and that will never change”, the president said, speaking to the country’s senior political figures and on live television.
Tensions continue to rise between Turkey and Russian Federation as both sides increase their military power at the Turkish-Syrian border.
“There was a Soviet propaganda machine in the Cold War era”, Davutoglu told reporters at an Ankara airport before leaving for Azerbaijan on an official visit.
Mr Putin repeated his call for a joint front under the United Nations to defeat terrorism, saying it is impossible to achieve that goal “through the efforts of a single country”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu were expected to meet briefly Thursday afternoon in Belgrade, Serbia, on the sidelines of an Organization for Security and Co-operation meeting, the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Russian president says “Allah only knows” why Turkey shot down their fighter jet, but there’ll be hell to pay.
Putin has already ordered economic sanctions against Turkey, banning imports of some Turkish goods.
On Friday, an unnamed US State Department official confirmed to Reuters that the Russian photos of thousands of oil tanker trucks in Syria were authentic. The militants shot and killed the downed plane’s pilot while he was descending on parachute and also killed a Russian marine involved in rescuing the plane’s co-pilot. “We are not going to rattle the sabre”.
Advertisement
Moscow has also encouraged Russian soccer teams to avoid recruiting Turkish players, and Russian universities have begun shuttering programs linked to their Turkish counterparts.
