Russia Accuses Turkey of Buying Terrorist Oil; Turkey Warns Russia: Don’t “Play With Fire”; Russia Blames U.S. For Jet Loss

By John J. Xenakis. Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev alleged on Wednesday that Turkish officials were benefiting from ISIS oil sales, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it was no secret that “terrorists” use Turkish territory.

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin on Thursday renewed his accusation that Turkey’s officials were “accomplices of terrorists” for supporting the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has furiously denied such accusations of several occasions.

At a news conference on Thursday, Putin said that Russian spy planes had witnessed trucks carrying “industrial scale” amounts of oil from ISIS sources crossing the border from Syria into Turkey. He said it was “theoretically possible” that Ankara was unaware of oil supplies entering its territory from ISIL-controlled areas of Syria but added that this was hard to imagine. . .

In addition to accusations that Turkey’s officials were “accomplices of terrorists” and that Turkey was buying oil from ISIS, Russia says that it will adopt a set of economic sanctions having to do with trade, transport, and tourism:

•Big energy projects, including a gas pipeline and cooperating in building Turkey’s first nuclear plant, may be canceled.
•Civilian flights to and from Turkey will be limited. In addition, tourism to Turkey will “obviously” be curtailed, because of the danger of terrorism.
•Food safety checks on agricultural imports from Turkey will be increased. Every shipment will now have to be inspected, which will result in substantial delays. (Read more from “Russia Accuses Turkey of Aiding Terrorists” HERE)

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Putin Says Russian Su-24 Shot Down Because of United States

By Jennifer Newton, Will Stewart and Corey Charlton. Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan has warned Russia ‘not to play with fire’ after Vladimir Putin suggested the Su-24 jet was shot down after the U.S passed on details of its flight path. . .

Moscow has threatened Ankara with economic retaliation for the incident and Putin even accused the U.S of leaking information about the flight to Turkey after they gave them prior warning of the mission. . .

[Putin] vowed to join France in coordinating bombing campaigns against ISIS forces and agreed to share intelligence information.

He told a press conference yesterday: ‘The American side, which leads the coalition that Turkey belongs to, knew about the location and time of our planes’ flights, and we were hit exactly there and at that time.

‘Why did we pass this information to the Americans? Either they were not controlling what their allies were doing, or they are leaking this information all over the place.’ (Read more from “Russia Accuses Turkey, U.S.” HERE)