He was speaking after the Russian defence ministry claimed Erdogan and his family were involved in the illegal oil trade with IS, raising the stakes in a week-long standoff after Turkey shot down a Russian war plane on the Syrian border. Russian officials assert the alleged arrangement financially benefits not only ISIS but also Turkey’s ruling elite.
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Both ISIL and the PKK are recognised as terrorist groups by Turkey, as well as US, EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. We always considered and will always consider treachery to be the ultimate and lowest act.
“We are not planning to engage in military sabre-rattling”, Putin told an audience in the Kremlin. “They should know that we do not equate them and part of the current Turkish leadership, which holds a direct responsibility for the deaths of our troops in Syria”, Putin said. “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”.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) presented “evidence” on Wednesday that ISIS had been smuggling oil onto Turkish soil to be purchased by Turkey’s president “and his family”.
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow would hand over to the United Nations and all interested countries solid proof of Turkey’s involvement in illicit oil trade with the fundamentalists.
Responding to the allegations during a trip to Qatar Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that no one had the right to “slander” Turkey by accusing it of buying oil from Islamic State, and that he would stand down if such allegations were proven to be true.
Putin warned Turkey that Russia planned to adopt further measures against it for the incident – beyond the sanctions it has already imposed which include banning imports of Turkish fruit and vegetables, and preventing Russians from going on package holidays to Turkey. “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’ll remind them of what they did, more than once”.
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But the official announcement of the break-off in the talks dealt another blow to floundering Russian-Turkish ties, as Putin lamented the damage to a relationship that he has spent years nurturing. Allah knows why they did it (shoot down the Russian jet). “Every day it created different lies …This was an old tradition but it has suddenly reared its head again”, Davutoglu said.
