MOSCOW: Around 1250 trucks carrying Turkish exports have been blocked from entering Russia and are stranded at border posts awaiting clearance, a senior shipping industry.
Six days after NATO-member Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in the first known incident of its kind since the Cold War, calls for calm have gone largely unheeded. Ankara refuses to back down and Russia responds with sanctions.
“Russia has not given permission to Turkish trucks for entry or transit passage for the past four days,” Fatih Sener, managing director of Turkey’s International Shippers Association (UND) said in an interview.
“Apart from the trucks waiting at the border posts, it doesn’t allow those that have entered the country but waiting to discharge their load at the customs. This is the case for Romanian, Bulgarian, Kazakh and Moldovan trucks carrying Turkish goods,” he said.
Both Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have repeatedly said Ankara had no intention to escalate the incident, but both reiterated that Turkey had the right to defend its borders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is waiting for an apology over the downing of an Su-24 warplane along the Turkish-Syrian border, and approved a round of economic sanctions against Ankara.
