MOSCOW (AP) — 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 militants.
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 IS-controlled deposits in Syria and Iraq into Turkish sea ports and refineries.
The Turkish leader has denied Russian President Vladimir Putin's earlier claims of Turkey's involvement in oil trade with the IS, and has pledged to step down if Moscow proves its accusations.
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 group, shortly after the Russian Defense Ministry made the claims.
"Maybe I'm speaking too bluntly, but the control over that thievish business could only be given to the closest people," Antonov said, adding that Erdogan's son heads a top energy company and his son-in-law has been named Turkey's energy minister.
A Russian parliament member, Vasily Likachev, told state news agency Tass that Moscow has sufficient evidence on oil sales to file a claim with the UN International Court of Justice.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that he would agree to meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on the sidelines of an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe meeting of foreign ministers in Belgrade, the Serbian capital.
