“Adding fuel to the fire benefits no one”, said Erdogan, who signed a memorandum of understanding on gas supplies from Qatar, Turkey’s closest ally.
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“In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president’s son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son-in-law has been appointed energy minister”.
“President Erdogan and his family are involved in this criminal business”, Antonov said. He first accused Erdogan of backing ISIS on Monday; Erdogan denied these claims, saying he was prepared to resign if Russian Federation could provide proof, asking that Putin do the same if he couldn’t provide proof.
“What a fantastic family business”, he said, claiming that “terrorists” in Syria make some $2 billion (1.9 billion euros) each year out of the illegal oil trade.
Erdogan responded to the accusation on Wednesday by rejecting Russia’s right to “slander” Turkey with such claims.
State Department spokeswoman, Elizabeth Trudeau, said that based on the information given, the Russian warplane was indeed flying in Turkish airspace. “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.
The rising tensions between Turkey and Russian Federation come as both sides continue to bolster their military presence on the Turkish-Syrian border.
The US has earlier suspected that middlemen in Turkey have been buying oil from IS territories. This also of course relates to the transit of fighters across the Turkey-Syria border that are essential to maintaining not only ISIS but al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other terrorist groups.
A Russian parliament member, Vasily Likachev, told state news agency Tass that Moscow has sufficient evidence on oil sales to file a claim with the UN International Court of Justice.
Mr Putin said: “We know that Turkey is filling its pocket and allows terrorists to earn money by selling oil stolen from Syria”.
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But Erdogan also said that Turkey had no intention of escalating the crisis and said the two countries still have potential for cooperation. Putin alleges the plane was shot down in retaliation for Russian bombing campaigns against ISIS oil smugglers, many of whom do business on the Turkish black market. 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.
