Russia’s deputy defence minister has accused the Turkish president and his family of personally benefiting from the illegal oil trade with Islamic State militants.
The accusations follow Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane near the Syrian border last week, which has set off an angry spat between the two nations that had developed close economic ties.
Speaking to dozens of foreign military attaches and hundreds of reporters in Moscow, Anatoly Antonov said Russia has evidence showing that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family were linked to the IS oil trade.
“President Erdogan and his family are involved in this criminal business,” Mr Antonov said. “We know the price of Erdogan’s words… Turkish leaders won’t step down and they won’t acknowledge anything even if their faces are smeared with the stolen oil.”
Mr Antonov claimed that IS militants make two billion US dollars (£1.33 billion) a year from the illegal oil trade.
Lt Gen Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military’s General Staff said Russian airstrikes on the IS oil infrastructure in Syria had halved the militants’ profits.
The defence ministry officials showed the journalists what they said were satellite images depicting thousands of trucks carrying oil from IS-occupied areas in Syria and Iraq into Turkey. They did not, however, provide any evidence to back up the claims of personal involvement of Mr Erdogan and his family in the illegal oil trade.
The Turkish president has denied Turkey’s involvement in oil trade with the IS, and said repeatedly that he would resign if Russia proves its accusations.
Earlier, Russia’s foreign minister, had struck a less confrontational tone, when he said that he would agree to meet with his Turkish counterpart this week to hear Turkey’s explanations on the downing of the Russian air force jet.
Sergey Lavrov said he will meet Mevlut Cavusoglu on the sidelines of an Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe meeting of foreign ministers in Belgrade, the Serbian capital.