Following a meeting with Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was due to hold talks later Thursday with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, marking the two countries’ first high-level face-to-face talks since Ankara’s downing of the Russian plane on November 24.
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Russian Federation is accusing Turkey of downing the jet in order to protect its oil trade with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Turkey respects the principle of inviolability of other states’ borders and other countries should also respect the principle of inviolability of Turkey’s borders, Davutoglu said.
“Those who do not like economic embargos imposed on them, should not place an embargo on others”, Davutoglu said.
He suggested for the first time, however, that the plane was brought down because Turkey could not “morally” allow the plane to trespass on Turkish territory before bombing Turkmen areas in Syria.
“Neither our conscience, nor our history, nor our morals could have allowed (the plane) to bomb innocent people by violating (our border)”, Mr Davutoglu said.
Russian Federation denies the claim and has since slapped economic sanctions on Turkey.
Russian Federation has suspended construction on the Turkish Stream pipeline, which had been slated to transport natural gas from Russian Federation to southern Europe by way of Turkey.
The Defense Ministry tells the dpa news agency that Ursula von der Leyen plans to meet with her Turkish counterpart Thursday afternoon in Ankara.
The start of the meeting on the sidelines of the ministerial council of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe was also confirmed by a diplomatic source in Belgrade.
Aleksei Miller, the head of Russian gas giant Gazprom, said on December 3 that Turkey would have to ask Russia to reopen talks on TurkStream.
Gazprom shares have been suffering as a result of oil and gas prices, Western sanctions on account of Ukraine, and now the likely scrapping of the Turkish stream.
“We must leave all arguments and disagreements behind and make one powerful fist, a single anti-terror front, which would work on the basis of global law under the aegis of the United Nations”, he said, addressing lawmakers and top officials who had gathered in an ornate Kremlin hall.
On Thursday, November 26, the Russian Minister of development, Alexei Ulyukayev, said that Russia is cancelling Turkish Stream and, perhaps, even the $20bn Akkuyu project at the Mersin province.
Some market players raised concerns about political instability, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan being probed for a 2013 corruption scandal involving government ministers. The ministry insisted the images definitively prove Turkey’s massive oil trade with the IS.
“We will not stop reminding them of what they did and they will not stop regretting their actions”.
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On Wednesday US intelligence sources claimed Russian personnel had been seen at Shaayrat airbase in Homs province, raising speculation that Moscow is preparing to expand its air operations.
