Putin threatens Turkey with more sanctions

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Ankara could find alternatives to Russian oil and gas, as bilateral tensions escalated over the downing of a Russian warplane, AFP reported.

Turkey has claimed Russian Federation is trading oil with the Islamic State, countering Moscow’s claims that Turkey’s president was personally involved in deals with the terrorist group.

But on Thursday, without specifying how, Putin made clear Moscow planned to go much further, using strong rhetoric which underscored the continued depth of his anger towards Ankara over the November 24 incident.

Delivering the annual state of the nation address to both houses of Parliament in Moscow, Russia’s President Putin said “probably Allah alone knows why they did it”, reports the BBC. “But if someone thinks they can commit a heinous war crime, kill our people and get away with it, suffering nothing but a ban on tomato imports, or a few restrictions in construction or other industries, they’re delusional”.

The Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down by Turkish authorities last month after they claimed it violated their airspace for 17 seconds.

The official estimated that to smuggle about 20,000 barrels of oil into Turkey per day it would take about 1,000 trucks, a number that had not been seen crossing the border.

“No one has the right to slander Turkey, especially the slander of Turkey buying IS oil”.

“For that money the bandits are recruiting mercenaries, buying weapons and staging cruel terror attacks aimed against our citizens, as well as citizens of France, Lebanon, Mali and other countries”, he said.

“We all have a common enemy and that is ISIL and I want to make sure we focus on that threat, ” Obama said adding that any problem should be solved through the “diplomatic language”.

Instead, US officials told reporters, the oil pumped in eastern Syria is refined in ad hoc desert pits equipped with crude stills and sold on the war zone black-market within Syria and neighboring Iraq.

In a speech during a visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu again defended Turkey’s action and said Turkey won’t apologize for defending its borders. “In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president’s son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son has been appointed energy minister”, he said, adding sarcastically.

Travel agents in Russian Federation say they’re finding it hard to find affordable alternative destinations for their customers.

“We expressed our sadness and expressed our condolences for the Russian pilot who lost his life”, Cavusoglu said after meeting Lavrov in the Serbian capital.