Turkish energy projects unharmed by row with Russia, says Erdogan

The State Department has dismissed Moscow’s charge against its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, which directly implicated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family in the trade, insisting there is no evidence to support it. “I don’t believe that there is significant smuggling, between ISIL-controlled areas and Turkey of oil in any significance in volume”, Hochstein said yesterday, using an alternative name for IS. Turkey maintains that the jet was warned over and over as it approached Turkish airspace but it ignored all warnings. Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said Thursday that talks had been suspended with Ankara on the joint TurkStream project, to pipe gas to Turkey and southern Europe. Energy-hungry Turkey relies on Russian Federation for 55 percent of its natural gas and 30 percent of its oil, but Erdogan indicated that Ankara is now seeking new suppliers in the wake of the plane crisis.

The action at the port of Samsun came after Russian Federation held five Turkish ships for port inspections at Novorossiysk, according to two port officials who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. “We’ll find other sources behind different doors”. “Besides Russia Turkey has natural gas agreements withIran Azerbaijan Nigeria Qatar and Algeria” he said adding that in addition to natural gas Turkey hasoil deals with Iran and Saudi Arabia. “Turkey will not collapse because of your imports of $1 billion”.

USA special envoy and coordinator for global energy affairs, Amos Hochstein, on Saturday said the amount of oil smuggled into Turkey from areas of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group is “of no significance from a volume perspective – both volume of oil and volume of revenue”. Last week Russian Federation blocked Turkish goods from nectarines to shallots.

“No negativity has resulted from the problems we have recently faced”, he said. We are speaking a diplomatic language. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called for dialogue with Moscow to “narrow our differences” after meeting with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday, in the first high-level contact between the two sides since the plane was shot down.