FARS: Turkey had dispatched a battalion comprising 130 soldiers to an area near the city of Mosul on the pretext of providing military training to the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. Mosul is now under the control of the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group.
“The Turkish forces have left Nineveh province,” the Arabic-language al-Mayadeen TV quoted an unnamed high-ranking official as saying today.The Turkish government claimed that it has sent troops to the Northern parts of Iraq in a bid to train the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.
“If the government of Turkey is not informed of Daesh [derogatory term for IS] oil trade in the country, we are ready to put the information at its disposal,”Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaie as saying on Friday.
READ MORE: Russia presents proof of Turkey’s role in ISIS oil trade
Rezaie elaborated that Iran is in possession of photo and video evidence of IS oil entering Turkey in trucks, adding that Iran is ready to broadcast the information.
The comments were made as the official visited victims injured in Syria.
READ MORE: Map, images from Russian military show main routes of ISIS oil smuggling to Turkey
Earlier this week, the Russian Defense Ministry released maps and satellite imagery it said proved that Turkey is the main consumer of oil smuggled out of Syria and Iraq by IS. The ministry also claimed that the Turkish president and his family are involved in the criminal dealings.
Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov, who hosted the briefing, said: “A united team of criminals and Turkish elites, involved in stealing oil from its neighbors, is acting in the region. This oil is being supplied to Turkey on a large industrial scale via improvised pipelines composed of thousands of oil truck tankers.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied Russia’s accusations that Turkey is involved in oil dealings with Islamic State.
Meanwhile, many Turkish citizens question Erdogan’s denial and appear not to be surprised by the evidence presented by Moscow.
RT’s Harry Fear asked people on the streets of Istanbul what they made of the report presented by Russia’s Defense Ministry.
“I believe that Erdogan and ISIS have some [contract] between them,” one man said. Another Istanbul resident told RT that“the rumors have been circulating for a long time and everyone knows what’s going on, but nothing has been done about it.”
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