“We are not planning to engage in military sabre-rattling”, Putin told an audience in the Kremlin.
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The shooting down by Turkish F-16 fighter jets of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border on November 24 has sparked the worst crisis in relations between Moscow and Ankara since the Cold War. “And evidently Allah chose to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason”, he said.
Turkey claims the plane breached its airspace and ignored repeated warnings but Russian Federation insists it never crossed the border from Syria and accused Ankara of a planned provocation.
Putin has already ordered economic sanctions against Turkey, banning imports of some Turkish goods.
The defence ministry said its surveillance revealed hundreds of tanker trucks gathering at Islamic State-controlled sites in Iraq and Syria to load up with oil, and it questioned why the US-led coalition was not launching more air strikes on them.
“The foreign minister is giving constant information on all of his meetings to the president”, Peskov said.
The meeting between Russia’s Sergei Lavrov and Turkey’s Mevlut Cavusoglu, on the sidelines of the ministerial council of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, was also confirmed by a diplomatic source in Belgrade.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hotly denied that his country was involved in oil trade with the IS, and has pledged to step down if Moscow proves its accusations.
On Wednesday Russian Deputy Minister of Defense Anatoly Antonov and his colleagues, during an event at defense ministry headquarters in Moscow, showed foreign defense attaches based in Moscow satellite images purporting to show ISIL transporting oil to Turkey.
“The Turkish minister confirmed the stance that had been publicly voiced both by the president and the prime minister of Turkey”, Lavrov was cited by Interfax as saying. “To sit around a table to talk – that’s the method we would prefer”.
Moscow says its warplanes have been targeting terrorist groups near Syria’s border with Turkey, while Ankara says the Russian air strikes have been aimed at moderate militant groups comprising ethnic Turks who oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Mr Putin called for an end to what he called double standards that hampered uniting global efforts in fighting terrorism. The incident, which took place late last month, triggered a vehement war of words between the two nations followed by Russian trade sanctions. Every day, they would come up with a new lie.
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Thousands of Russian citizens from Chechnya, Dagestan and elsewhere have joined the Islamic State group in Syria. “When terrorists have constant financial support, the threat of terrorism is growing”, he said.
