Speaking in Paris, Obama said he’s hopeful that Russian Federation will eventually see that there is no military solution in Syria, and that it’s unwise for President Vladimir Putin to get “bogged down” in Syria. She also called on U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration to stand by its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey against the Moscow-imposed sanctions.
Advertisement
“Mr Obama expressed his regret over the incident with the Russian military airplane shot down by the Turkish air force in Syria”.
“Ultimately Russia’s going to recognise the threat that (IS) poses to (the) country, to its people, is the most significant and that they need to align themselves with us who are fighting ISIL”, he said, using another name for the group.
Putin said on Monday that Russia had obtained more information supporting the claim that ISIL oil is exported via Turkey and that Turkey’s downing of a Russian plane was motivated by a desire to defend the oil supply.
Observers say Moscow’s claim that Turkey has benefited from the multimillion-dollar illicit oil trade with Islamic State are particularly sensitive for Erdogan, given that numerous allegations involve his son, Bilal.
The Erdogan government has said Putin’s accusation amounted to slander.
Nowhere are the stakes higher than in Syria, where Western countries are ambivalent about securing Moscow’s assistance in rooting out the Islamic State from its centers of operations. “It is possible, however, to preserve the Syrian state”, he said.
Erdogan added: “It is obvious where we legally buy oil and natural gas from”.
“We have recently received additional reports that confirm that oil from ISIL-controlled territories is delivered to the territory of Turkey on an industrial scale”, he said, according to TASS news agency.
The downed plane incident has been further exacerbated by the strong personalities of the Russian and Turkish leaders. Both the Russian General Staff and the Syrian Air Defense Command confirmed that the Russian jet never crossed into Turkish airspace. It will halt fruit and vegetable imports from Turkey after Putin signed a decree banning charter flights and the sale of package holidays, and scrapping Russia’s visa-free regime with Ankara.
Besides economic sanctions on Ankara, Russia also intensified airstrikes in Syria against the Turkey-backed rebels in northern Syrian on the Syria-Turkey borders.
“As the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have stated, we have serious concerns regardingRussian incursions into Turkish airspace. These channels didn’t work and not through the fault of the Russian side”, he said. “We’ve got to choke off their ability to bring in new fighters because, you know, we’ve taken tens of thousands of their fighters off the battlefield”, Obama said.
Advertisement
Yet those hopes have been dampened by the spiraling diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Russia, sparked late last month when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane it said had violated its airspace along the border with Syria.
