Moscow says Turkey shot down plane to protect oil trade with ISIS

President Obama said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t want a repeat of Afghanistan with its military action in Syria, but he doesn’t expect Moscow to stop supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad in the civil war anytime soon.

The Nato chief did not specify what the new measures would involve but said that the alliance has for many years helped Turkey with its air defences.

Russia also took steps to restrict Russians from traveling to Turkey, which could hit the Turkish tourism industry hard. President Obama points out that the real threat among the countries were the terrorist group, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the need to find a political resolution in Syria.

The country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he would resign his office if Russian Federation can prove its claim regarding the purchasing of oil from ISIS.

“It is obvious where we legally buy oil and natural gas from”, Erdogan said, as reported by Turkey’s Anadolu news agency. Both Russia and the United States see Turkey as the ultimate in order to resolve the conflict in Syria, so Turkey has to be on board for it all to work out.

The Erdogan government has said Putin’s accusation amounted to slander.

Mr Obama hopes for “a shift in calculation in the Russians and a recognition that it’s time to bring the civil war in Syria to a close”.

Moscow says Turkey shot down its SU24 warplane inside Syria on 24.

“We all have a common enemy, and that is ISIL”, Obama said after meeting with Erdogan. “We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers”, Putin said.

At least one question regarding the relationship with Russian Federation is expected to be clarified by the time the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation foreign ministers’ meeting concludes on Wednesday, according to diplomats: Montenegro’s request to join North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

His comments were made during a meeting with Russia’s President Putin on the sidelines of the World Climate Change Conference near Paris.

Amid high tensions that have elicited concerns from the U.N chief, Ahmet Davutoglu also said Turkey hopes Moscow will reconsider economic sanctions announced against Turkish interests in the wake of last week’s incident.

For Ankara, the Islamic State (IS) group is an officially-listed terrorist organisation which poses an immediate threat to Turkish territory.

Turkey says the plane was in its airspace; Russian Federation it was bombing ISIS targets.

Last week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said starting the process with Montenegro would be “another serious blow” to worldwide security and deemed it “confrontational”.

Davutoglu also renewed a call for Russian Federation to keep military and diplomatic channels for dialogue open, insisting that Russia’s stance was turning the Syria crisis into a “crisis between Russian Federation and Turkey”.