More punitive measures by Russia against Turkey are coming, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in his annual address Thursday to his country’s Federal Assembly. “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.
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Putin further evoked the term “Allah”, the Islamic and Arabic word for God, saying the Turkish political elite lacked wisdom and judgement. “And evidently Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason”, he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he offered his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, Turkey’s condolences over the death of a Russian pilot.
Turkey insists it’s had nothing to do with buying oil from ISIS.
Sharply raising the stakes in Moscow’s spat with Ankara, Russia’s top military brass on Wednesday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of personally profiting from oil trade with Islamic State militants.
Other US outlets, including USA Today and Voice of America, focused on Washington’s response to the Russian briefing, citing the reactions of the White House, the State Department, and US military commanders, who rushed to defend their allies in Ankara. The Russian defence ministry on Wednesday released an array of satellite and aerial images which it said show hundreds of oil lorries streaming across the border.
“We know for example who in Turkey fills their pockets and allows terrorists to make money from the stolen oil in Syria”, Putin said. Nor has the Russian leader taken his phone calls.
“We will remind them not once about what they have done, and they will feel sorry about it a few times”.
Russia-Turkey tensions have risen since the downing. The feedback have been the newest in what has-been a deteriorating relationship between Russia & NATO-member Turkey, after the latter downed a Russian fighter jet last month.
Antonov didn’t provide any specific evidence to back up the claims of personal involvement of Erdogan and his family in the oil trade with the IS.
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. The Russian pilot was killed by militants after bailing out from the plane and a Russian marine was also killed on a rescue mission to retrieve a second pilot.
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Minutes after Putin had finished speaking, his energy minister, Alexander Novak, said Russian Federation was halting talks with Ankara on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, a symbolic move created to emphasize the strength of Kremlin anger. Russian Federation says the plane, which was taking part in the Kremlin’s air campaign against rebel groups in Syria, had not strayed from Syrian air space.
