Last week, tempers flared anew between Ankara and Moscow after Turkey accused Russia of violating its airspace near the Syrian border.
This time around, Turkey summoned the Russian ambassador - a much more prudent course of action than shooting down a Russian warplane, which is what Ankara decided to do back in November.
Back in November, before the flames were even extinguished on the Su-24 Ankara shot down near the Syrian border, Vladimir Putin made a startling assertion.
Turkey, he said, is funding ISIS.
Back on July 20, a suicide bomber detonated in Suruc, Turkey, killing 33 people.
Suruc is a mere stone’s throw away from the Syrian border and from Kobani, where many of those killed were planning on assisting in a rebuilding effort.
The attack was quickly attributed to Islamic State. Two days later, two Turkish police officers were killed by the PKK in Ceylanpinar. Kurdish militants said the men had cooperated with ISIS. Their deaths, PKK’s Syrian affiliate said, were “in revenge for the massacre in Suruc.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is no fan-o’-Kurds, so to speak. Well, unless the Kurds you’re talking about are assisting in a lucrative business that involves the trafficking of illicit crude from Iraq to the port of Ceyhan.
Over the past five weeks, Turkey’s role in facilitating the trafficking of illicit Islamic State crude has been exposed for the world to see. Ankara’s move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian border prompted a media blitz from Moscow, which has variously accused the Erdogan government of being complicit in a business that nets Bakr al-Baghdadi between $500 million and $1 billion per year in revenue.