Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dismissed Russian claims he is benefiting from the oil trade with the Islamic State group as “slander”.
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Erdogan has furiously denied the allegations against him and his family and said Turkey had proof that Russian Federation was, in fact, involved in trading oil with IS.
“We shall remind them many times about what they’ve done, and they will regret what they’ve done for a long time”, he said.
Earlier, Russia’s defence ministry displayed satellite images it said showed columns of trucks loaded with oil crossing from IS territory in Iraq and Syria into Turkey.
Russian Federation has accused Erdogan and his family of personally profiting from the oil trade with Islamic State, which controls a large chunk of Syrian territory, including a number of oil fields. “Therefore, we must prevent the threat and destroy the terrorists”, said the President.
Putin has already ordered economic sanctions against Turkey, banning imports of some Turkish goods.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday vowed never to forget Turkey’s downing of one of Moscow’s warplanes, as he lashed out once again at the leadership in Ankara over the incident.
Their strong language reflects their president’s conviction that Turkey has “stabbed Russian Federation in the back”.
A ministry official said Sergey Lavrov and Mevlut Cavusoglu would meet at an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) gathering in the Serbian capital Belgrade.
The man, appearing to be in his late 20s, is shown speaking from a chair.
In the attack, a Russian pilot onboard the jet was killed.
The authenticity of the video was not immediately clear, but Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed Thursday that the victim was Chechen and called for revenge. “They have created this mess, destroyed sovereignty, set people against one another and then, as we say in Russian Federation, they washed their hands of the whole thing, paving the way for radicals, extremists, and terrorists”. “They earn around $2 billion annually, spending these funds on hiring militants from around the world and equipping them with weapons, equipment, and arms”, Antonov said.
Thousands of Russian citizens from Chechnya, Dagestan and elsewhere have joined the Islamic State group in Syria.
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Putin threatened in his speech with further sanctions.
