Turkey claims Russian Federation is trading oil with IS

“Turkey is the main customer of this oil that is stolen from Syria and Iraq”, said deputy defense minister Anatoly Antonov at a defense briefing reported in Russian newspaper Pravda. He added Turkey is funding “mercenaries, purchasing weapons, organizing inhuman terrorist attacks directed against our citizens, citizens of France, Lebanon, Mali and other countries”. “He seemed to be escalating the war of words with Turkey and other Russian Federation detractors in Europe and the Middle East”.

Fellow pilots acting as pall bearers carry the coffin holding the body of Oleg Peshkov, a Russian pilot of the downed SU-24 jet, during a memorial service in Lipetsk, Russia, December 2, 2015.

Press TV has interviewed James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst in Washington DC, about Russian Federation saying it is in possession of evidence showing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal smuggling of oil from territories held by Takfiri Daesh terrorists in Syria and Iraq.

“According to information we’ve received, the senior political leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – are involved in this criminal business”. “Some members of the Turkish elite are directly responsible for the death of our servicemen”. He called the idea that they are “somehow working with” IS “preposterous”.

Putin said that given a push to improve relations with Ankara in recent years, Moscow did not understand why its rival in the Syria war had downed its jet. “We know who it is who profits in Turkey by letting terrorists sell oil there. And evidently Allah made a decision to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason”, he said.

A State Department official said that for Islamic State, control over the oil fields is not only about revenue but also about projecting a “false” image that it is a state.

He specifically targeted Turkey, accusing it of buying oil from the Islamic State group.

“We will hear what Mr Cavusoglu has to say”.

“It is unusual that it was voiced many days after the issue of illegal oil trade got to media, when we presented specific facts”, Russian News Agency TASS quoted Lavrov as saying.

Russia, for its part, has since threatened economic sanctions against Turkey, which includes the stoppage of an agreement for a pipeline that would have provided natural gas to Turkey.