Turkey fury as Russian seen brandishing rocket launcher

The shooting down by Turkish fighter jets of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border on November 24 has plunged relations between Moscow and Ankara into their biggest crisis since the Cold War.

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 on Saturday, using an alternative name for IS.

Turkey had considered Russian Federation a strategic partner as its main energy supplier, despite deep differences over Syria.

Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu this week visited Qatar and Azerbaijan respectively to reach agreements on importing liquefied natural gas from Qatar, and expediting the construction of a gas pipeline that carries Azerbaijan’s gas in the Caspian Sea to Turkey and Europe.

In his televised speech, Erdogan referred to media reports over the suspension of the project, saying “It is in fact Turkey that suspended the project a while ago as Russian Federation didn’t fulfill Turkey’s requirements”.

Turkey depends on outside suppliers for 90.5 percent of its oil and 98.5 percent of its natural gas, the president said.

He pointed out that unlike other countries, Turkey did not launch sanctions against Russian Federation over the Ukraine crisis.

“When US officials say they don’t see how the terrorists’ oil is smuggled to Turkey, it smells badly of a desire to cover up these acts”, the ministry said on its Facebook page.

“We are not speaking with their language now. We are patient on this issue”, he said.

Speaking on the talks, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We heard nothing new”.