“We’re their North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and a trusted partner”, he said.
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Meanwhile, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has rejected Russia’s accusations of illegal oil trade.
Following the downing of a Russian warplane that violated Turkey’s airspace near the Syrian border on November 24, Russia announced sanctions against Turkey and President Vladimir Putin has alleged Turkish involvement in oil purchases from Daesh.
Antonov said today: ‘President Erdogan and his family are involved in this criminal business.
“Obviously no one but the closest people could be entrusted to control such things [as oil bought from IS]”.
“What a fantastic family business”, he said, claiming that “terrorists” in Syria made some $2 billion (1.9 billion euros) each year out of the illegal oil trade.
“This oil enters the territory of Turkey in huge quantities, on an industrial scale along a living pipeline of thousands of oil tankers”, Antonov said. The Deputy Defense Minister also stated that Russian Federation is aware of three major oil smuggling routes, all of which have Turkey as their final destination.
Speaking in Doha, Erdogan responded to the new claims on Wednesday by saying that no one had a right to “slander” Turkey. He has said Ankara is taking active steps to prevent smuggling of fuel, and he challenged anyone who accused his government of collaborating with Islamic State to prove their allegations.
“Turkey has not lost its moral values; we’re not buying oil from a terrorist organisation”, he said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Turkey is committed to sealing its border along areas in Syria that are controlled by Islamic State.
Russian Federation is Turkey’s third-biggest trading partner and the tensions are likely to have some impact on its fragile economy.
But Erdogan also said Turkey had no intention of escalating the crisis and said the two countries still have potential for cooperation.
Lavrov said his country’s aim is to ensure that it doesn’t allow the “overflow” of terrorist threats in Turkey from making their way into Russian Federation.
A State Department spokesman yesterday admitted that there was a longstanding issue of oil being illegally transported to Turkey from wells in what is now IS territory.
Last week, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the IS gunmen received weapons, logistic support and medical services from Turkey.
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Ankara claims the plane was in its airspace and ignored repeated warnings but Moscow insists it never crossed the border from Syria.
