“We will use whatever diplomatic language worldwide diplomacy requires”.
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Russian officials said their country’s bombing campaign had made a significant dent in Islamic State’s ability to produce, refine and sell oil.
“We know for example who in Turkey fills their pockets and allows terrorists to make money from the stolen oil in Syria”, Mr Putin said.
With tensions riding high between Moscow and Ankara following Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border, Davutoglu said Moscow was again behaving in the same way.
Turkey insists the plane had violated its airspace, but Russian Federation vehemently rejects that contention. The shoot-down, the first time a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation country downed a Russian plane in more than half a century, has triggered a bitter spat between the two nations, which had developed robust economic ties in the past.
Putin began his presentation by asking for a moment’s silence to honor the memory of Russian servicemen killed in Syria, where Russia is conducting airstrikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad against Islamic State and other groups. But if people think that after carrying out a cynical war crime, killing our people, they’ll get away with a tomato ban or some limits in the construction sector, they’re very wrong.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he offered his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, condolences over the death of a Russian pilot, adding: “It would be unrealistic to say that the problem has been overcome”.
“According to our data, the top political leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – is involved in this criminal business”, Antonov stressed.
Invited journalists and military attaches were shown satellite images and grainy video footage, purporting to show tanker trucks with oil crossing from IS-held territory into Turkey.
“We have received additional data which confirm that Islamic State oil… enters the territory of Turkey”, Putin said.
They claimed Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the trade. “We just don’t believe that to be true in any way, shape or form”, a State Department spokesman said.
President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have traveled to key energy partners Qatar and Azerbaijan respectively this week in an effort to avert any economically damaging disruption in energy supplies as winter sets in. “Every day it produces a variety of lies”, Davutoglu said. “To sit around a table to talk – that’s the method we would prefer”.
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But hopes of de-escalation suffered a setback when Russian Federation officially announced a list of sanctions to be imposed on Turkey. “Sanctions are detrimental to both sides”. After saying Turkish leaders “will regret” shooting down a Russian fighter jet last week, Putin said, “Allah chose to punish Turkey leaders by making them lose their minds”, the state-owned Sputnik news agency reported.
