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Erdogan: No one can slander Turkey over Daesh oil claims
Scimitary rattling by the Grand Turk...[ARABNEWS] Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday no one has the right to "slander" ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... by accusing it of buying oil from Daesh [Islamic State], and that he would stand down if such allegations were proven to be true. Erdogan, who was speaking at a university in the Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... i capital, also said he did not want relations with Moscow to worsen further. Russia accused Erdogan and his family of involvement in illegal oil trading with Daesh [Islamic State] terrorists, ratcheting up the heat in a dispute over Ankara's downing of one of Moscow's warplanes. The inflammatory allegations -- the latest in a ferocious war of words -- came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had agreed to meet his Turkish counterpart for the first high-level face-to-face talks since the incident last week. The Defense Ministry accusations against Erdogan are the first implicating the Turkish strongman directly, as the Kremlin refuses to let the pressure drop after slapping economic sanctions on Ankara. "The main consumer of this oil stolen from its legitimate owners Syria and Iraq is Turkey," Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told journalists at a packed briefing. "According to available information, the highest level of the politicianship of the country, president Erdogan and his family, are involved in this criminal business." Antonov pointed the finger at the recent appointment of Erdogan's son-in-law Berat Albayrak as energy minister and alleged that the president's son runs one of the country's main energy companies. "What a fantastic family business," he said, claiming that "terrorists" in Syria made some $2 billion each year out of the illegal oil trade. The ministry officials displayed satellite images which they said showed columns of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Daesh [Islamic State] in Syria and Iraq, and then crossing the border into Turkey. Posted by: Fred 2015-12-03 |
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