“Today we face this barbaric ideology, and we should set aside our differences and unite in one anti-terrorist front under global law and the United Nations”. We always considered and will always consider treachery to be the ultimate and lowest act.
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Russian Federation on Wednesday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of involvement in illegal oil trading with Islamic State jihadists, ratcheting up the heat in a dispute over Ankara’s downing of one of Moscow’s warplanes. “For that money the bandits are recruiting mercenaries, buying weapons and staging cruel terror attacks aimed against our citizens, as well as citizens of France, Lebanon, Mali and other countries”, he said.
“Russia’s Sovietic stance – that we thought it had forgotten – is coming back bit-by-bit”, he said.
However he said there would not be a “hysterical reaction” but pointed out that “if people think that after carrying out a cynical war crime, killing our people, they’ll get away with a tomato ban or some limits in the construction sector, they’re very wrong”.
“We will be reminding [them] again about what they’ve done and they’ll be regretting it – we know what to do”, he added.
He also promised more sanctions for Turkey over downing of the Russian jet.
“It appears that Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique of Turkey by depriving them of wisdom and judgment”, he said.
Turkish and Russian foreign ministers were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of an Organization for Security and Cooperation meeting in the Serbian capital Belgrade on Thursday, the first meeting at a senior level since the plane’s downing.
Video footage showed the plane crashing in a mountainous area in northern Syria.
Mr Putin said that given a push to improve relations with Turkey in recent years, Russian Federation did not understand why its rival in the Syria war had downed its jet.
Turkey has strongly rejected Russian allegations it has any links with ISIS militants.
At a briefing in Moscow, defense ministry officials displayed satellite images that they said showed columns of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and then crossing the border into neighbouring Turkey.
Turkey insists the SU-24 fighter bomber violated its air space and was warned repeatedly before being shot down.
Putin said in his speech that Russia’s air campaign in Syria, which started on September 30, is meant to fend off a terror threat to Russian Federation posed by militant groups in Syria that include people from Russian Federation.
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“We are not planning to engage in military sabre-rattling (with Turkey)”, said Putin, after asking for a moment’s silence for the two Russian servicemen killed in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and for Russian victims of terrorism.
