But, he cautioned, “it will be sad if we hear nothing new”. Russian officials have also alleged that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family have benefitted from the oil trade with the terrorist group.
Advertisement
The Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down by Turkish authorities last month after they claimed it violated their airspace for 17 seconds.
“We will remind them not once about what they have done, and they will feel sorry about it a few times”.
He harshly criticised Turkey, accusing it of buying oil from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
The economic situation “is hard but not critical”, Putin said, adding that there were “some positive trends”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu were expected to meet briefly Thursday afternoon in Belgrade, Serbia, on the sidelines of an Organization for Security and Co-operation meeting, the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Moscow protested Ankara and promised serious consequences to Russian-Turkish relations, including economic sanctions. “According to information we’ve received, the senior political leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – are involved in this criminal business”, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s deputy defence minister, said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Russian officials provided satellite evidence showing the transport of oil from Islamic State-held territory in Syria to Turkey on an industrial scale.
Russia-Turkey tensions have risen since the downing.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has accused Turkey’s leaders of “collusion” with ISIS, alluding to accusations in that Turkey’s president advantages personally from the militants’ unlawful oil trade.
“We have many friends in Turkey”.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu speaks during a press conference at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on November 30, 2015.
Just before the plane incident, US President Barack Obama had hailed talks between global and regional powers in Vienna as the first halting progress towards finding a solution.
The Syrian region of Bayirbucak close to Yayladagi district of Turkey’s southern Hatay province is home to Syrian Turkmens – a Turkic ethnic group – who have fled their homes following airstrikes from the regime of Bashar al-Assad with Russian support.
The military has stated that since Russia’s bombing campaign, ISIS oil smuggling has been severely reduced- in turn affecting Erdogan’s income something that could explain why Erdogan took the extreme measure of shooting down the Russian jet.
Advertisement
“Only Allah knows why they did this”, Mr Putin said yesterday in his state-of-the-nation address, drawing applause from his audience at the Kremlin.
