President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday said Turkey had proof Russia was involved in illegal oil trade with the Islamic State group in Syria, countering “immoral” Russian allegations that his own family was importing oil from the jihadists.
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Turkey has always attached importance to relations with Russia, Davutoglu said here, urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to resolve the dispute over the plane downing through diplomatic means. “Let those in Turkey who shot our pilots in the back know this”, Putin told lawmakers in his annual state of the nation address.
“He asserted that “if someone thinks that after committing heinous war crimes, the murder of our people, it will end with (an embargo on) tomatoes and limitations in construction and other fields, then they are deeply mistaken”.
Putin further evoked the term “Allah”, the Islamic and Arabic word for God, saying the Turkish political elite lacked wisdom and judgement.
Early reports said that Moscow has halted talks on the joint Turkish Stream pipeline project, which was agreed upon in December 2014 to pump gas to Turkey and Europe via the Black Sea.
“We reject it outright, and frankly, we question some of these allegations that have been leveled against the family”, Toner said.
What we do know is that while neither Turkey nor Russia exactly supports ISIS-the group released a video showing the beheading of what it claims was a Russian spy and threatening Russian citizens this week-fighting it is not really the top priority of either country.
The official estimated that to smuggle about 20,000 barrels of oil into Turkey per day it would take about 1,000 trucks, a number that had not been seen crossing the border.
Ties between Moscow and Ankara have worsened drastically after Turkey downed a Russian jet for allegedly violating Turkish air space last week.
“Turkey will regret many times what’s been done”, said Putin.
Erdogan this week visited the Gulf country Qatar where he agreed a deal for LNG purchases, while his Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu travelled to energy-rich Azerbaijan. One of its two pilots was reportedly shot dead by Syrian rebels while parachuting. It also slammed an array of economic sanctions on Turkey, including a ban on imports of fruit and vegetables and the sales of tourism packages.
But he added: “It would not be realistic to say that the problems have been overcome in a first meeting”.
Lavrov said he “heard nothing new” from Cavusoglu.
The intensity of Russia’s accusations has been growing since the downing of the jet on November 24, the most unsafe incident involving Russian Federation and a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation state in the past 50 years.
Britain joined U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria on Thursday, but demonstrating the limits to worldwide solidarity, Vladimir Putin issued bitter new denunciations of Turkey for shooting down a Russian plane last month.
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While Putin has repeatedly said Russian troops in Syria won’t engage in ground combat, the statement signaled the high degree of the Russian military’s involvement in coordinating Syrian army action.
