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MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/. Moscow’s relations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will never be like they used to, Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergey Ivanov told RT on Thursday.
"Definitely not," Ivanov said answering a corresponding question. "However, the fight against terrorism will continue in the same mode," he added.
Ivanov stressed that Russia continues to maintain good relations with the Turkish people. "We love them. However, the real policy of the Turkish leadership proves (and yesterday’s briefing in the Russian Defense Ministry definitely proves this) that Turkey without any doubt buys oil controlled by the Islamic State (terrorist organization), or Daesh, and sells it all over the world. It is impossible to deny this," the official noted.
"If we will be sincere enough in our intention to disrupt the channels of financial support to terrorists in Syria and Turkey for a start, and also in Libya, we will be able to defeat terrorism swiftly and successfully," Ivanov said.
Commenting on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly, Ivanov particularly noted that point that "no country can successfully fight against terrorism alone." Another noteworthy point was that "if a country has links with terrorists, especially if it finances them, hides them on its territory, supplies weapons to it - then it commits betrayal, acts very unwisely and recklessly," Ivanov noted adding that Putin was talking about Turkey.
On Wednesday Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told a briefing in Moscow that Turkey’s senior leadership and personally President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are involved in the illegal production and transportation of Syrian and Iraqi oil to Turkey. "Turkey is the main consumer of this oil stolen from its legitimate owners - Syria and Iraq. According to received information, the country’s (Turkey) senior leadership, President Erdogan and his family are being personally involved in this criminal business," Antonov said adding he expected the reaction to be serious. "The profits from selling oil are one of the most important sources of the terrorists’ activity in Syria. They earn around $2 billion every year, spending these funds on recruiting gunmen around the world and providing them with weapons, equipment and armament," he added.
On November 30 Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow has grounds to say that Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed to secure illegal oil deliveries from Syria to Turkey. Answering a question on whether Moscow wants to form a broad anti-terrorist coalition, Putin said: "We always supported this." "However, this cannot be done while someone continues to use several terrorist organizations to reach their immediate goals," he added.
The Russian president stressed that financial support to terrorists in Syria continues. "We have recently received additional reports that confirm that that oil from ISIL-controlled (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - former name of the Islamic State terrorist organization) territories is delivered to the territory of Turkey on an industrial scale," Putin noted.
"We have all grounds to say that the decision to down our plane was motivated by the intention to secure these routes of delivering oil to ports where it is loaded on tankers," he said. "Defending Turkmen is just a pretext," Putin noted.