Erdogan says no one can ‘slander’ Turkey over Islamic State oil claims

Defense ministry officials showed journalists satellite images that they claimed depicted thousands of trucks carrying oil from areas of Syria and Iraq under IS control.

Mr Antonov claimed that “terrorists in Syria” earned almost €2bn from the illegal oil trade and “that is why IS so protects its thieving oil extraction infrastructure in Syria and Iraq”.

“In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president’s son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son has been appointed energy minister”, Antonov said.

” ‘What a great family business!’ Antonov said with sarcasm”.

On Monday, Erdogan challenged his Russian counterpart to produce evidence to back up the claim – and said he would resign if it was found to be true.

Turkey will regret “more than once” about its shooting down of a Russian bomber jet near the Syrian-Turkish border, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, adding Moscow would not ignore Ankara’s “aiding of terrorists”.

USA officials have previously said they have information suggesting Turkish “middlemen” were involved in the illegal IS oil trade.

Toner said some of the oil sold by the IS group is bought by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russian Federation, and some is smuggled out of the country.

Turkey has said it downed the Russian plane after it intruded its airspace for 17 seconds despite numerous warnings, and has refused to apologize for the shoot-down. Ankara said Su-24 “violated” Turkish airspace, but Moscow has denied the claim.

The allegations were echoed by General Staff Lieutenant-General, Sergei Rudskoi, who said during the same press briefing that three smuggling routes had been discovered, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote Wednesday. World leaders will use the summit to discuss issues including, climate change, the global economy, the refugee crisis and terrorism.

Russian Federation has halted the sale of holiday tours to Turkey – a key tourist destination – and is set to ban the import of Turkish fruit and vegetables, as well as threatening other measures.

However, in September, before Russian Federation began strikes, the US Defense Department said IS had lost up to 10 percent of its territory in Syria in a year.

Davutoglu also renewed an accusation that Russian operations in Syria were hampering efforts to clear Turkey’s border of IS militants. The Turkish government buys Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi seized oil wells. Putin alleges the plane was shot down in retaliation for Russian bombing campaigns against ISIS oil smugglers, many of whom do business on the Turkish black market.