“We consider it wrong because of the unfortunate incident affording to damage our relations, which as a result of years of efforts have gained a solid and strong foundation”, – said the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, responding to a question as Ankara assessed the decree signed by the President of the Russian Federation on the use of special economic measures against Turkey.
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Russian Federation buys about $1 billion worth of Turkish food and other products annually and is Turkey’s No. 1 energy provider, shipping gas, coal and oil.
Turkey says the plane strayed into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings, while furious Moscow insists it did not cross from Syria and has accused Ankara of a planned provocation.
The shooting down by Turkish fighter jets of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border on November 24 has plunged relations between Moscow and Ankara into their biggest crisis since the Cold War.
“It is possible to find different suppliers”, Erdogan said in a televised speech, referring to Qatar and Azerbaijan.
A 170-tanker column of ISIL came under the massive strike of the Russian bombers as they were approaching the border with Turkey, sources said.
Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu this week visited Qatar and Azerbaijan respectively to reach agreements on importing liquefied natural gas from Qatar, and expediting the construction of a gas pipeline that carries Azerbaijan’s gas in the Caspian Sea to Turkey and Europe.
But Erdogan dismissed the remark as a “lie”, saying that in fact Turkey suspended the project because of Russia’s “non-compliance with our demands”. “Turkey will not collapse because of your imports of $1 billion”. The government is instructed to tighten control over activities of Turkish haulage companies and to ban chartered flights between Russian Federation and Turkey with the goal of ensuring security within Russian Federation. “We will stand firm”.
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“We continued to export goods. We are patient on this issue”, he said. He said the row should not have repercussions on the people of two countries, but complained about the treatment of Turkish citizens living in Russia to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting last week in Belgrade, Serbia.
