Russia says has proof Turkey main consumer of Islamic State oil

We know, for example, who is filling their pockets and who is allowing terrorists to profit from oil stolen from Syria in Turkey.

Ankara and Moscow have been at loggerheads since last week when a Turkish airforce jet shot down a Russian warplane near the border of Syria and Turkey.

“No one has the right to make such a slander as to suggest that Turkey buys Daesh’s oil”, said ErdoĞan, speaking in Qatar and using an Arabic acronym for the ISIL group.

“The main consumer of this oil stolen from its legitimate owners Syria and Iraq is Turkey”, deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov told journalists at a packed briefing. Antonov added that the IS made some 2 billion USA dollars a year mainly from smuggling oil. Fuel tankers with oil freely cross the border between Turkey and Iraq, according to Russia’s General Staff.

“What a great family business!”

Despite the tensions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he is prepared to meet Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu at a conference in the Serbian capital Belgrade this week.

But, he added, if the allegations are untrue, then Russian President Vladimir Putin should resign.

Following the downing of the plane, Putin described the incident as a “stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists”, saying that it will have serious consequences for Russia’s relations with Turkey.

The meeting would be the first between senior officials from the two countries since Turkey downed the Russian warplane, touching off a crisis between the two countries that previously enjoyed warm ties.

Defense officials said that Russian airstrikes against the group has so far halved its oil smuggling income.

“Three major transportation routes running from the IS-held (formerly ISIS) areas in Syria and Iraq to the territory of Turkey have been revealed”, Rudskoi said.

There is no place for Assad in Syria’s future, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday, but the U.S. hopes that the government and structure can remain.

The new USA sanctions also apply to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a wealthy Russian businessman and long-standing president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) who was formerly president of the southern Russian region of Kalmykia.

Vladimir Putin has said Allah was punishing “the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving it of reason or logic” when it shot down a Russian war plane.