Vladimir Putin calls for broad international anti-terror front

In his first state of the nation address after Russian Federation launched military intervention in Syria against ISIS, Vladimir Putin kept his focus on Turkey rather than terrorism.

Putin further evoked the term “Allah”, the Islamic and Arabic word for God, saying the Turkish political elite lacked wisdom and judgement. “Emotions are running high (in Turkey and Russia), but my president (Nazarbayev), knowing Mr Putin very well personally and knowing his great potential to be constructive and knowing personally President (Tayyip) Erdogan, believes and hopes they will think strategically in this very hard situation”, Idrissov said.

“The main consumer of this oil stolen from its legitimate owners Syria and Iraq is Turkey”, deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov told journalists.

Moscow imposed sanctions against Turkey in retaliation for the incident, banning imports of Turkish fruit and vegetables, and preventing Russians from going on package holidays to Turkey.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has accused Turkey’s leaders of “collusion” with ISIS, alluding to accusations that Turkey’s president benefits personally from the militants’ illegal oil trade.

Turkey claims the plane breached its airspace and ignored repeated warnings but Russian Federation insists it never crossed the border from Syria and accused Ankara of a planned provocation.

Turkish President Erdogan even said he would resign if Russian Federation could prove the allegations.

“We shall remind them many a time what they have done and they will more than once feel regret what they have done”.

Nine days after the incident, Moscow and Ankara still have starkly different versions of what happened, and Putin is furious Erdogan has not apologized for the episode, something the Turkish leader has said he will not do.

Last week, the Russian president alleged that a creeping Islamisation has set in under Erdogan’s watch.

Mr Putin announced plans for the pipeline in December 2014, after Russian Federation junked its South Stream joint venture with European Union firms, which would have taken gas to southern Europe and Bulgaria.

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.

“You [Russia] did not have to accept the invitation by the killer [Bashar al-]Assad regime, who has killed 380,000 people”, Erdogan said.