Putin says Russian Federation ‘will not forget’ Turkish downing of warplane

Mr Putin’s view is shared by Muslim ally, the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who said on social media: “Turkey is not fighting ISIS!” “That means no shelter to bandits, no double standards, no contacts whatsoever with any terrorist organizations, no attempts to use them for some selfish goals, no criminal, bloody business with terrorists”.

“The main consumer of oil stolen from legitimate owners in Syria and Iraq is Turkey”.

Turkey neither intends to escalate the situation regarding the downing of the Russian warplane, nor would apologize to Russia for the incident, Davutoglu said at Azerbaijan’s ADA University here, pointing out that Russia’s accusations of Turkey stabbing Moscow in the back are groundless.

“And evidently Allah chose to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason”, he said.

Reports in the past from Turkey’s border with Syria have repeatedly said that Islamic State was smuggling oil to underground dealers in Turkey. The shoot-down, the first time a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation country has downed a Russian plane in more than half a century, triggered a bitter falling out between the two nations, which had developed robust economic ties.

“We will not stop reminding them of what they did and they will not stop regretting their actions”. “But if someone thinks that after committing heinous war crimes, the murder of our people, it will end with tomatoes and limitations in construction and other fields, then they are deeply mistaken”, Putin said.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Thursday that talks with Turkey on building a pipeline that would allow Russia to export natural gas to the European Union through Turkey have been halted. The Russian Defence Ministry on Wednesday released an array of satellite and aerial images which it said show hundreds of oil trucks streaming across the border. The ministry claimed Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his family are involved in selling illegal oil.

Erdogan angrily dismissed Russian claims that Ankara is trading in oil with jihadist groups, insisting he would resign if allegations were proved true.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also underscored that if the border is closed Ankara will not be able to accept refugees from Syria.

“Let’s decrease tensions with our rhetoric”, Davutoglu said. “Sanctions are detrimental to both sides”. Islamic State claimed responsibility for downing a Russian tourist plane in Egypt in October, killing 224. Putin snubbed a meeting with Erdogan at the United Nations climate conference in France on Monday, after Lavrov had earlier scrapped a visit to Istanbul just after the plane downing.

But they are rival players in the war in Syria, with Ankara part of a US-led coalition against IS that is opposed to President Bashar al-Assad while Moscow has launched a bombing campaign at the request of the Damascus regime.

“We reject the premise that the Turkish government is in league with ISIL to smuggle oil”.