Mevlut Cavusoglu’s comments came on Thursday night after his first meeting with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov since Turkish F-16s downed a Russian warplane near the Syrian boder on 24 November.
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It banned imports of some Turkish foodstuffs as part of a sanctions package, and on Wednesday Russia’s defence ministry said it had proof that President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq.
“On energy, Turkey is definitely more dependent on Russian Federation than what the consensus seems to portray”, Naz Masraff, director for Europe at political risk consultants Eurasia Group, said on Monday. “We were inspired by your personal participation in the Victory Parade on May 9”, Lavrov said, adding that a Serbian military unit “was marching along the country’s chief square.”This is the symbol of the unity of our peoples”.
The meeting would be the first between senior Turkish officials since Turkey downed a Russian plane near its border with Syria, touching off a crisis between the two countries that previously enjoyed warm ties.
Ankara has refused to apologize for the incident, saying the plane was given ample warning and was in Turkish airspace. “I’m still anxious that Turkey could impose sanctions on Russian goods in response”. Now they are trading bitter accusations over the downing of the Russian jet.
Russian Federation had already said that TurkStream’s planned capacity would be just 32 Bcm/year, down from the original plan for 63 Bcm/year, while Turkey has still not approved the project at governmental level.
Storage facilities around the city may not be sufficient to meet demand in the case of a prolonged cut in supply, he said.
Diplomatic relations between Russia and Turkey were recently shaken after the Russian Su-24 was shot down near the Turkish-Syrian border by Turkish forces on November 24.
Davutoglu said the sanctions would be detrimental to both sides. “Let’s reinforce our friendship by not preventing our Russian friends from coming to Turkey but enabling more Turks to go to Russia”, he said.
The Russian plane crashed in northern Syria and a crew commander, Oleg Peshkov, was killed by Turkmen groups while descending with a parachute.
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“TANAP and Baku-Tbilisi and Ceyhan, as two big projects, are the main channels to transfer oil and natural gas sources from the Caspian to the Mediterranean and Europe”, he said.
