Obama tells Russia, Turkey to focus on IS

US President Barack Obama led calls Tuesday for Turkey and Russia to end their dispute over the downing of a Russian fighter jet and focus instead on Islamic State, the real enemy.

Russian Federation has been carrying out air strikes in Syria, targeting rebels against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including IS. Turkey has insisted it won’t apologize for the shoot-down, which also led Russian Federation to slap a package of new sanctions against Turkish products.

Turkey, too, hopes to avoid tensions with Russia, Erdogan told reporters as he and Obama finished their roughly hour-long meeting.

Erdogan said he would be ready to resign if the allegations were proved true. “That is ISIL”, said Obama, adding that he wants to make sure all parties focus on that threat.

Antonov said that Russian Federation will continue to provide facts that Turkey steals from its neighbors, adding that it’s a surprise no one in the West ever noticed that Erdogan’s son is the owner of one of the largest energy companies, while the president’s son-in-law was energy minister. This meeting came a day after when Obama met with Putin, who refused to meet Erdogan since the incident.

“We have all grounds to suspect that the decision to down our plane was motivated by the intention to secure these routes of delivering oil to ports where it is loaded on tankers”, he said.

“I consider somebody who kills hundreds of thousands of his own people illegitimate”, Obama said in reference to Assad.

With Mr Putin committed to keeping Mr Assad in power in Damascus, Mr Obama did not expect Russian warplanes to shift their focus soon to hitting ISIS rather than other opposition groups. “But I am asking Mr. Putin, would you remain?” the newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying.

Relations between Moscow and Ankara have sharply deteriorated since Turkey shot down the Russian fighter bomber near the Syrian-Turkish border on November 24.

Although crediting Turkey for bolstering security at the Syrian border, Obama pointed out that there are still “gaps” and Turkey needs to fix those gaps in order to fight against ISIL. We are not using the same language as them…

Davutoglu said the protection of Turkey’s borders was the duty of the government, according to the newspaper, which also reported NATO’s backing for Turkey.

Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said last month Turkish Stream could be among the projects affected by sanctions against Turkey, but he did not specify how.

Russia’s exports to Turkey consist mainly of mineral resources, including hydrocarbons, while main import items were vegetables, fruit and textiles. Russian officials have said they could be expanded if necessary.