Turkey holding back emotions, unlike Russia – Erdogan

Turkish President Erdoğan has said this week that he is so deeply offended by the claims Russia has made regarding Turkey’s involvement with ISIS, that he will resign as President if Russian President Putin can prove the claim.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday it had proof that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from ISIS-held territory in Syria and Iraq.

“We are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling (with Turkey)”, said Putin, after asking for a moment’s silence for the two Russian servicemen killed in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and for Russian victims of terrorism.

“We are not that dishonest as to buy oil from terrorists”. We always considered and will always consider treachery to be the ultimate and lowest act.

Russian Federation has accused Erdogan and his family of personally profiting from the oil trade with Islamic State, which controls a large chunk of Syrian territory, including a number of oil fields.

While the Turkish government has claimed to have made efforts to curb ISIS oil smuggling on the Syrian-Turkish border, Turkish border guards have been found engaging in the ISIS oil smuggling operation in the past. “We will reveal it to the world”, Erdogan said in a televised address in Ankara.

Putin has already ordered economic sanctions against Turkey, banning imports of some Turkish goods.

“We observe…that the current Turkish leadership over a significant number of years has been pursuing a deliberate policy of supporting the Islamization of their country”, Putin had said.

If Turkey thinks it’s going to get away with “mere restrictions on the trade of tomatoes or some other restrictions … then they are grossly mistaken”, Putin said.

“We will remind them not once about what they have done, and they will feel sorry about it a few times”, he said without spelling out what other actions Russian Federation may take.

Immediately after the speech Russian Federation s energy minister Alexander Novak announced the suspension of talks between Ankara and Moscow over the major TurkStream pipeline project. The start of the meeting on the sidelines of the ministerial council of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe was also confirmed by a diplomatic source in Belgrade.

He attacked Turkish leaders for the shooting down of the Russian jet on a bombing mission in Syria, saying “only Allah knows why they did it”.

He also said his country would have liked to cooperate with Turkey on fighting terrorism before last week’s plane incident.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking in Baku, Azerbaijan, urged Putin to tone down his language.