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U.S. says no evidence shows Turkey involved in Islamic State oil smuggling

Xinhua, December 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United States on Wednesday turned down the Russian allegations that the Turkish government had been in league with the Islamic State (IS) militants to smuggle oil from Syria.

"We reject outright the premise that the Turkish government is in league with ISIL(another acronym for IS) to smuggle oil across its borders," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner at a daily news briefing. "And we frankly see no evidence, none, to support such an accusation."

The Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of profiting from illegal shipments of oil by IS the terrorist group in Syria.

"The main consumer of oil stolen from legitimate owners in Syria and Iraq is Turkey. Top political leadership of the country, President Erdogan and his family, are involved in this criminal business," Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told a press briefing in Moscow, the Russian capital.

"We don't believe there's any truth to the fact that their claims that the Turkish government is somehow complicit in a legal oil trade with ISIL, is just not true," Toner said.

Toner, however, admitted that some "older than decades" oil smuggling routes are existing among the Syria-Turkey borders.

The White House on Wednesday also said that there is a lingering gap along the Turkey-Syria border and some areas are not properly secured. Endit