Is Turkey helping Islamic State?

Putin’s outrageous – and now unfounded – claims that Turkey has been helping the Islamic State transport oil across its borders have tongues wagging across political forums around the world.

Erdogan has said he is prepared to step down if Russia can prove the oil claims and has urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to do the same if he can’t prove them.

Last Tuesday, a Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down by Turkish F-16 jet near the Turkish-Syrian border.

He said: “I don’t expect you’re going to see a 180 turn on their strategy”.

Gabbard, 34, a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard who has served in Iraq and Kuwait, has openly opposed President Obama on Syria, especially after the November 13 Paris attacks by the Islamic State that left 130 dead and 368 wounded.

“The United States supports Turkey’s right to defend itself and its airspace and its territory”, Mr Obama said.

After rejecting Turkish leader Erdogan’s offer of face-to-face talks on the sidelines of a United Nations climate summit outside Paris on Monday, Putin accused Ankara of seeking to protect IS oil exports – an important source of funds for the jihadist group.

“Turkey is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally”, he added.

Also on Tuesday, Russia’s Tour Operators Association said it had stopped selling tours to Turkey indefinitely, while the Ministry of Education and Science said it was curtailing cooperation with Turkey’s universities and planned shortly to repatriate all Russian students in the near future. Waxing optimistic about a new diplomatic effort in Vienna aimed at a cease-fire in Syria’s civil war, Erdogan said he hoped it would result in “sigh of relief for the entire region”. “That is ISIL”, Obama said using an acronym for the Islamic State, according to the AP. He said his government wanted to reduce tensions and was “determined to keep up the fight” against IS.

For his part, Stoltenberg said: “The focus now should be on how we can de-escalate and calm tensions (and find) mechanisms so that we can avoid the type of incident we saw last week”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Obama want to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, although he was elected and is still popular in Syria.

Turkish companies operating in Russia and Turkish staff employed by Russian companies will also face restrictions.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called for the opening of communication channels between Ankara and Moscow to prevent further incidents like the downing of the warplane.

“We remain determined…to continue developing additional North Atlantic Treaty Organisation assurance measures and allies are working to prepare other possible contributions”, ministers said.