MOSCOW—Sharply raising the stakes in Moscow’s spat with Ankara, Russia’s top military brass on Wednesday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of personally profiting from oil trade with Islamic State (ISIS) militants.
The bluntly-worded accusations follow Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane at the Syrian border last week, the first time a NATO member shot down a Russian aircraft in more than half a century. The fierce personal attack on Erdogan reflects the Kremlin’s anger and signals that Russia-Turkey tensions will likely continue to escalate.
The Russian Defense Ministry invited dozens of foreign military attaches and hundreds of journalists to produce what they said were satellite and aerial images of thousands of oil trucks streaming from the ISIS-controlled deposits in Syria and Iraq into Turkish sea ports and refineries.
“The main customer for this oil stolen from Syria and Iraq is Turkey,” said Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov. “The top political leadership of the country, President Erdogan and his family, is involved in this criminal business.”
The Turkish leader has denied Russian President Vladimir Putin’s earlier claims of Turkey’s involvement in oil trade with ISIS, and has pledged to step down if Moscow proves its accusations.
“No one has the right to make such a slander as to suggest that Turkey buys Daesh’s oil. Turkey has not lost its moral values as to buy oil from a terror organization,” Erdogan said in Wednesday’s speech at Qatar University, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, shortly after the Russian Defense Ministry made the claims. “Those who make such slanderous claims are obliged to prove them. If they do I would not remain on the presidential seat for one minute. But those who make the claim must also give up their seat if they can’t prove it.”
