Oil smuggled into Turkey not enough to be profitable

The amount of oil being smuggled into Turkey from Syria was not enough for anyone to profit from it significantly, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Friday, rejecting claims by Russian Federation that top Turkish officials were benefitting by smuggling oil from areas of Syria controlled by Islamic State.

As Keith Johnson writes in Foreign Policy, “Turkey gets about 60% of its natural gas from Russian Federation, but Moscow can’t easily forsake the one European market where demand for natural gas is growing, especially at a time when low oil prices have hammered its export-dependent economy”.

“We have taken part in at least half of the operations”, a senior Turkish official said. “Therefore, everyone should act responsibly”, Cavusoglu said.

The comments came after Washington dismissed the 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 had a very useful meeting with my friend Sergei Lavrov”, Cavusoglu said on Saturday.

Earlier this week, the Russian defense ministry showed satellite images and drone video purportedly showing trucks moving across the Syrian-Turkish border.

Mr Erdogan said “a famous Russian chess player” was also involved in the oil business with IS, without giving a name.

Erdogan this week visited the Gulf country Qatar where he agreed a deal for LNG purchases, while his Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu travelled to energy-rich Azerbaijan.

“Let’s decrease tensions with our rhetoric”, Davutoglu said. “Sanctions are detrimental to both sides”.

Moscow and Ankara have been at loggerheads over last Tuesday’s incident when Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border.

Funeral ceremonies have been taking place for Oleg Peshkov, the plane’s pilot who Russian Federation said was shot dead after parachuting from the jet. “They went into someone else’s country, they are robbing it without compunction”, Antonov said.

Putin said in his speech that Russia’s air campaign in Syria, which started on September 30, is meant to fend off a terror threat to Russian Federation posed by militant groups in Syria.

“Modern Russian weapons have worked efficiently, and the priceless experience of its use in combat will be analyzed to help further improve our weapons”, he said.

While Putin has repeatedly said Russian troops in Syria won’t engage in ground combat, the statement signaled the high degree of the Russian military’s involvement in coordinating Syrian army action.