Russia accuses US of cover-up over IS oil smuggling to Turkey

AFP ^ | December 5th, 2015 | Unattributed

[Mariner]

MOSCOW (AFP) -

Russia's defence ministry on Saturday accused the United States of turning a blind eye to the trafficking of oil into Turkey from Syrian areas under Islamic State control, after Washington called the amounts involved insignificant.

"When US officials say they don't see how the terrorists' oil is smuggled to Turkey... it smells badly of a desire to cover up these acts," the ministry said on its Facebook page.

"The declarations of the Pentagon and the State Department seem like a theatre of the absurd," the statement added, suggesting that Washington "watch the videos taken by its (own) drones which have recently been three times as numerous over the Turkey-Syria border and above the oil zones".

US special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, Amos Hochstein, on Friday said the amount of oil smuggled into Turkey from areas of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group is "of no significance from a volume perspective -- both volume of oil and volume of revenue".

His comments came after Moscow accused Ankara of profiting from the trade.

[dforest]

Obama probably guilty as hell. Shame our POTUS is such a sleazy skunk.

[Grampa Dave]

You can use up your stash of bombs pretty quickly if you try to bomb every empty building in Syria and Iraq .... several times!

Correct and if your budget only has $ for gays,trannies and pushing females into jobs they can't do physically and nothing left for bombs and ammo .