Erdoğan Calls Putin’s Bluff: Russia Backs Down

by Scott Creighton

A few days ago Russia, displeased with Turkish leadership’s refusal to publicly apologize for the premeditated downing of their fighter jet, said they had “more evidence” that Turkey was engaged in buying the stolen Syrian oil from ISIS™ and they promised to release the evidence to the public.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the Justice and Development (AK) Party, immediately reiterated that he knew nothing of any program, official or not, involving Turkey buying this oil and challenged Russia to produce it. Erdoğan said it’s well known who is really buying the oil from ISIS™ (which I have covered in previous articles) but if it turned out that the Russian evidence was solid and Turkey had been buying some, he would resign immediately.

It should be noted, aside from my article and those that I referenced showing Turkey was not buying oil from the thing called ISIS™, it’s also a pretty well established fact for those paying attention.

Most analysts agree that Turkey is not buying oil directly from ISIS, but it is possible that some distributors are buying oil from ISIS and selling it in Turkey. Russia Today and Reuters and APA (Azerbeijan) and Guardian (London)  Breitbart

Yes, that is war-mongering, neocon-loving, Erdoğan-hating Breitbart that had to admit, Turkey is not directly buying stolen oil from Syria. But someone is. And that is who Erdoğan was referring to in his statement.

As to those “distributors”? Well… let’s just say it’s no wonder the MSM and  most “alternative” websites out there aren’t really talking about them.

Israel has bought as much as three-quarters of its oil from Iraqi Kurdistan in recent months, the Financial Times reported Sunday.

According to the report, which cited shipping data, trading sources and satellite tanker tracking, Israeli refineries and oil firms have imported more than 19 million barrels of Kurdish oil over the course of three months, from the beginning of May to August 11. Haaretz

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IS sells Iraqi and Syrian oil for a very low price to Kurdish and Turkish smuggling networks and mafias, who label it and sell it on as barrels from the Kurdistan Regional Government.

It is then most frequently transported from Turkey to Israel, via knowing or unknowing middlemen, according to al-Araby‘s investigation…

Al-Araby has obtained information about how IS smuggles oil from a colonel in the Iraqi Intelligence Services who we are keeping anonymous for his security.

The information was verified by Kurdish security officials, employees at the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, and an official at one of three oil companies that deal in IS-smuggled oil.

The Iraqi colonel, who along with US investigators is working on a way to stop terrorist finance streams, told al-Araby about the stages that the smuggled oil goes through from the points of extraction in Iraqi oil fields to its destination – notably including the port of Ashdod,Israel. …

Once in Turkey, the lorries continue to the town of Silopi, where the oil is delivered to a person who goes by the aliases of Dr Farid, Hajji Farid and Uncle Farid.

Uncle Farid is an Israeli-Greek dual national in his fifties. Al-Araby

Someone did want Russia to stop bombing those oil convoys heading out of Syria with the stolen oil. That’s IS why the Turkish military shot down the Russian fighter. All of that is true. But who was behind it?

When President Erdoğan told the Russians he would resign if it turned out that Turkey had been purchasing the ISIS™ oil, what was he really doing? If he knew it was happening and Turkey was benefiting from it, seems to me he giving the Gulenists all the ammo they needed to get him, and more importantly, his political party out of power.

It seems to me that he already knew they didn’t have evidence showing Turkey was buying the stolen oil and he also knew who was really buying it. So he invited Russia to release their evidence.

His bluff worked. Russia backed off their threat this morning:

Information about Ankara’s oil purchases from the terrorist organization calling itself Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) is crucial to fighting against terrorism, and not finding faults with the Turkish leadership, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, when asked if Moscow would make public evidence at its disposal Ankara had been purchasing crude oil from the Islamic State.

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that should any such evidence come to the surface, he would be prepared to resign.

“This is not a new statement. In this case it is most important to have information at one’s disposal and to use it in efforts focused mostly not on proving something but on the struggle with terrorism. And this information is being used precisely for the struggle with terrorism,” Peskov said without elaborating. TASS, Dec. 1, 2015

If it’s true what everyone suggests, that the real driving force behind the CIA’s creation ISIS™, is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (as ridiculous as that sounds) and he’s the one who plotted to shoot down the Russian jet in order to protect his son’s oil-stealing business (even more ridiculous considering who’s really profiting from the oil), then why wouldn’t Russia provide the proof and get Erdoğan out of the way?

After all, it was Erdoğan who staged the Sarin gas attack in Syria a couple years back to provide Obama with his “red-line”… right?

And it was Erdoğan who was sending “ebil Islamists” into Russia to destabilize that country (a close ally of Turkey’s) for some unknown reason… right?

Wasn’t that Erdoğan I saw in that video from Rita Katz’ production studio where they made all those fake beheading videos? I bet it was.

Heck, I bet if you look close enough, you’ll find Erdoğan’s passport in the Paris nightclub.

So wouldn’t that be consistent with Russia’s stated goal of using the intel in their “struggle with terrorism” if they produced the evidence and ran Erdoğan out of town on a rail? He’s the ISIS™ kingpin, right?

Perhaps Russia didn’t produce the evidence they have because it shows exactly what that report from Al-Araby shows. That the oil runs from areas where the Kurds are supposedly “fighting ISIS™” directly to Iraqi Kurdistan where it is heated up, slightly processed and then transferred to Kurdistan Regional Government tankers and drums so it can cross into Turkey, on route to places like Israel, without being flagged by Turkish officials. Indistinguishable from oil taken from Kurdistan in Iraq legitimately.

Whatever the reason was that Russia backed off their threat to expose those really profiting from the stolen oil, it’s my contention that President Erdoğan made that offer in order to protect the Justice and Development (AK) Party. If he were to take the blame and step down, it would be harder for the Gulenists to use the current turmoil in the country to demand a full on regime change, ousting the recently re-elected AKP from power.

Whatever the motives involved in this ongoing drama, the result is that President Erdoğan called the Russian’s bluff and for whatever reason, they decided to keep their evidence secret. Personally I think the Russians should publish everything they have on the stealing of Syrian oil showing exactly who is profiting from it and where it is going.

As a side note:

I found an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal from back in October of 2013.

Frankly, I am no supporter of President Erdoğan’s policy toward regime change in Syria. Whether or not it’s he who is running the support system to a number of terrorists in Syria or his CIA-linked intelligence services or his NATO-linked military leadership… is beside the point. He personally has the political clout to put an end to it, and for that reason alone (no, he’s not sending “Islamists” to Russia and he didn’t use Sarin gas in Syria, that was Brennan you idiots) it’s hard for me to do what I do in support of his continued influence in Turkey. But of course, I always er on the side of democracy and his party was re-elected and things are getting better for the average Turk. So to that end, I stand against this growing regime change propaganda agenda.

Now, that said, let’s take a quick peek at what was written in the Wall Street Journal 2 years ago.

Mr. Erdogan wanted to remove Mr. Assad not only to replace a hostile regime on Turkey’s borders but also to scuttle the prospect of a Kurdish state emerging from Syria’s oil-rich northeast, political analysts say…

Syrian Kurdish leaders, meanwhile, charge that Ankara allowed arms and support to reach radical groups that could check the expanding power of Kurdish militia aligned with Turkey’s militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Wall Street Journal, Oct. 2010

Greater Kurdistan anyone?

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