Moscow orders economic retaliation

MOSCOW: Russia is preparing a raft of retaliatory economic measures against Turkey after Ankara downed one of its warplanes, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday.

“The government has been ordered to work out a system of response measures to this act of aggression in the economic and humanitarian spheres,” Mr Medvedev told a cabinet meeting in televised comments.

He said under Russian law the broad punitive steps could include halting joint economic projects, restricting financial and trade transactions and changing customs duties. Measures could also target the tourism and transport sectors, labour markets and “humanitarian contacts”, Mr Medvedev said.

The measures would then likely be listed in a decree from President Vladimir Putin, he said.

“In these documents the focus will be on introducing limits or bans on the economic activities of Turkish economic structures working in Russia, a limitation of the supply of products, including food products, and on the work and provision of services by Turkish companies and other restrictive measures,” Mr Medvedev said.

“I propose doing all this in a period of two days so that we can move to setting up the appropriate procedures as quickly as possible,” Mr Medvedev told government ministers.