Turkish maritime officials started inspecting all Russian ships arriving in Turkey in response to similar move by Russia following the downing of Russian jet, according to the officials.
Advertisement
This is not to say that no oil from Daesh-controlled areas makes its way over the border into Turkey – smugglers have been operating across the 550-mile, loosely patrolled Turkey-Syria border for many years now, dealing in oil, weapons, and other things. We always considered and will always consider treachery to be the ultimate and lowest act.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state of the union address on Thursday and, as my colleague Andrew Roth reported, he reserved some of his most charged rhetoric for Turkey.
Accusations between the two countries grew after Turkey shot down a Russian military jet last week. They also want Erdogan to block the trucks loaded with ammunition and explosives that rumble across the border and to crack down on Turkish middlemen taking part in the oil-smuggling trade-an operation that nets the self-declared caliphate roughly $1.5 million per day.
Turkey says the jet had strayed into its airspace, claims Moscow denies, and the incident was a focal point for Putin’s address at the Kremlin’s St George Hall.
“If someone thinks they can commit war crimes, kill our people and get away with it, suffering nothing but a ban on tomato imports, as well as a few restrictions in construction or other industries, they’re delusional”, he said. “We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers”.
Russia’s President Putin indicates that Russian Federation will have revenge on Turkey at some appropriate time. “It seems Allah chose to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by relieving them of their sense and judgement”, he said.
The latest furious exchange comes as the two countries top diplomats met for the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since the plane incident.
Earlier, US State Department spokesman acknowledged that the photos presented by Russian military personnel showing hundreds of oil tanks for ISIS terrorists are real photos, yet he said he had not seen any crossings through which these oil tanks pass the Syrian- Turkish borders.
Relations between Moscow and Ankara have plunged into a crisis since Turkey on November 24 shot down a Russian warplane on Syrian border.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu dismissed the recent Russian allegations.
Advertisement
“There was a Soviet propaganda machine in the Cold War era”, Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara.
