Russian Federation accuses Turkey of funding terror with oil deals

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. “We have repeatedly spoken about the danger of toying with terrorists”.

“The amount of oil being smuggled is extremely low and has decreased over time and is of no significance from a volume perspective – both volume of oil and volume of revenue”, said Amos Hochstein, US special envoy and coordinator for global energy affairs.

Everyone present in the Kremlin’s St. George Hall where the annual state of the nation address is taking place honored the memory of those who died.

On Wednesday Russia made it personal, saying Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s family was directly profiting from Islamic State oil smuggling.

“Turkey is the main customer of this oil that is stolen from Syria and Iraq”, said deputy defense minister Anatoly Antonov at a defense briefing reported in Russian newspaper Pravda. “The terrorists are using these receipts to recruit mercenaries, buy weapons and plan inhuman terrorist attacks against Russian citizens and against people in France, Lebanon and Mali”.

Moscow has responded to the shoot-down by deploying long-range air defense missile systems to its air base in Syria and slamming an array of economic sanctions on Turkey.

“But if anyone thinks that after committing a treacherous war crime, the killing of our people, they will get away with (the ban on imports) of tomatoes or some restrictions on construction and other industries, they are deeply mistaken”.

“We’ll remind them again what they did – they will regret it”.

“He said he was making a clear distinction between the Turkish leadership and Russia’s “many longstanding and reliable friends in Turkey”. While the Russian government claims to be targeting only ISIS strongholds, the US and its allies have expressed concerns that Moscow might also be bombing areas held by Syrian rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad, a staunch Russian ally.

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.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he offered his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, condolences over the death of a Russian pilot, adding: “It would be unrealistic to say that the problem has been overcome”.

Pravda also reports that the chief of the Central Directorate of the General Staff claimed Russia’s military efforts have halved IS’s income from trading oil.