Russian Deputy Chairman: Turkey’s actions against Kurds damages Russia’s interests

MOSCOW, Russia (K24) - The deputy chairman of the government of Russian Federation, Sergei  Zhelezhyak  Vladimirovich in an interview with K24 on Thursday, said that Russia and other countries understand very well how important the contribution of the Kurdish forces is in putting an end to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

He continued that the Kurdish forces are the strongest military forces fighting against the global terrorism group, and what the Turkish government currently does against these Kurds are against our [Russia’s] interests.

"We should unite our efforts to eradicate the international terrorism. This is not a difficult thing to do, we can easily do it, and the only way to do that is through unifying our forces with the Syrian army and Kurdish self-protection forces with support of the Russian air force,” Vladimirovich added.

In an answer to the question about whether downing the Russian jet by Turkey, and the conflict that resulted between the two countries, will lead Moscow to try to use the Kurdish case as a card against Ankara, he noted that, “Kurds have a major presence in the Middle East, it will be weird to ignore a population of millions of Kurds in this region. It is necessary to consider and protect Kurdish rights in the Middle East after destroying ISIL.”

Regarding the reason why Russia has not helped Peshmerga so far, the deputy chairman of Russia said Russia supports Kurdish forces in Syrian Kurdistan in several ways and in all of the cases Russia respects the international laws.

Moscow accuses Turkey of protecting ISIL for the sake of the oil trade between the two sides on the Turkey-Syria border, and asks Turkey to apologize for shooting down its war plane and killing one of the two pilots as a result.

Recently, Russia as the second-largest trading partner of Turkey holds a series of economic sanctions against Turkey after the incident, including bans on Turks' labor contract extensions, chartered flights from Russia to Turkey, and tourism packages to Turkey.

Turkey, on the other hand, rejects the accusation of trading with ISIL and also refuses to apologize for what it considers as the legal right of its country to defend its borders.

(Khoshewi Muhammad contributed to this report from Moscow)