Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, on November 16, 2015. (Adem Altan/AFP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday angrily rejected Russian claims that Ankara is buying any oil from Islamic State, insisting that his country’s fight against the jihadist group is “undisputed.”
“Shame on you. Those who claim we buy oil from Daesh (IS) are obliged to prove it. If not, you are a slanderer,” Erdogan said, lashing out at Russian charges that came after the downing of a warplane on the Syrian border.
Erdogan also said that Russia was Turkey’s biggest energy supplier, followed by Iran.
Turkish F-16 jets shot down the warplane on Tuesday, prompting a tough response from Moscow, a major trade partner of Ankara.
Russian President Vladimir Putin heads a meeting on Russian plane crash in Egypt in Moscow’s Kremlin, Russia, early Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015. (Alexei Nikolsky/SPUTNIK, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the act as a “stab in the back” by “accomplices of terrorists.”
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The Turkish strongman denied Russian accusations that Ankara was collaborating with IS, saying his country’s fight against the jihadists was undisputed.
“Our country’s stance against Daesh has been clear since the very beginning,” Erdogan said in a speech to local officials at his presidential palace in Ankara.
“There is no question mark here. Nobody has the right to dispute our country’s fight against Daesh or to incriminate us,” he maintained, using the Arabic term for Islamic State.
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