Russian military chiefs have publicly accused the Turkish government of funnelling millions of dollars in illicit oil revenues to Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq, in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two countries.
Russia’s top generals said on Wednesday that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, and his family of personally involvement in a multi-million dollar oil smuggling operation that is funding terrorists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
"Turkey is the main consumer of the oil stolen from its rightful owners, Syria and Iraq. According to information we've received, the senior political leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – are involved in this criminal business,” Anatoly Antonov, a deputy defence minister, told reporters and several dozen foreign military attaches summoned at short notice to the army’s high-tech national defence command centre in Moscow.
"In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president's son heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son has been appointed energy minister. What a marvellous family business!” he added.
Mr Erdogan reacted with fury to the claims, describing them as “slander” and saying that Turkey had not lost its moral compass to such a degree that it would buy oil from Isil.
Speaking at a university in Doha, the capital of Qatar, he reiterated an earlier promise to resign if the accusations turned out to be true.
Mr Antonov and three senior Russian generals who hosted Wednesday’s briefing did not say what evidence they had specially linking Mr Erdogan and his family to illegal oil smuggling.
Instead they presented a series of satellite photos and drone surveillance footage showing what they said were oil tankers ferrying “industrial quantities” of oil pumped from Isil-controlled fields into neighbouring Turkey.
They said they had identified three main routes from Syria and Iraq into Turkey, most of which they claimed comes from fields near Dier ez-Zor in eastern Syria.
The ministry claims that oil from that area crosses into eastern Turkey via the border city of Al-Quamishli before being processed at the Batman refinery in eastern Turkey.
A second, western route sees tankers pass through Aleppo, before passing to the Turkish coastal cities of Dörtyol and Iskenderun, the defence ministry claimed. They also claimed Isil also smuggles oil into Turkey from northern Iraq.
Russia and Turkey have been locked in a diplomatic confrontation since a Turkish jet fighter shot down a Russian bomber aircraft on the Syrian-Turkish border on November 24.
Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Turkey had shot down the aircraft to protect oil and weapons smuggling arrangements with terror groups, and promised that Russia would present “proof” of the claims.
Mr Erdogan dismissed the accusation as “slander,” and said he would resign if Mr Putin could prove the claims.
Wednesday’s open accusations of aiding and abetting Isil is the closest Russia has come to declaring Turkey a hostile state, although the generals stopped short of announcing military action against the country.
Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov, the ministry of defence’s chief spokesman, said Russian forces would “continue to interdict Isil oil smugglers,” but did not say the country would begin operations against Turkey.
Moscow and Ankara had enjoyed a pragmatic and occasionally close relationship in recent years, but have found themselves at loggerheads after backing opposing sides in the Syrian civil war.
Turkey has been a strong backer of anti-Assad forces throughout the four-year civil war, and has complained that Russia was bombing ethnic Turkmen militia groups in Syria with which it is allied.
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http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/russia-has-proof-turkey-involved-isis-oil-trade.
Photo: Russia's top military officials hold a press conference on the fight against terrorism in Syria at the National Defence Control Centre of the Russian Federation in Moscow Photo: AFP/Getty