Turkey Still Ready to Buy Patriots, But US Cannot Guarantee Congress Approval - Cavusoglu
Ankara is still willing to buy US-made Patriot systems but the American administration cannot guarantee that the deal would get a green light from the Congress, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, explaining the reason for the choice in favor of Russia's S-400 missile defense systems
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2019) Ankara is still willing to buy US-made Patriot systems but the American administration cannot guarantee that the deal would get a green light from the Congress, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, explaining the reason for the choice in favor of Russia's S-400 missile defense systems.
"Even today, I am ready to purchase Patriots but is the United States giving any guarantee that they will get consent or OK from the Congress.
No. So, what am I going to do? So, it is purely for technical reasons that I had to buy air defense systems from somewhere else because I could not get it from my allies. And in the future I will need more of them until I produce them in Turkey," he said, speaking at the Mediterranean Dialogues conference in Rome.
"And if I can't get Patriots or something from our allies, I will have to continue to purchase them from other sources. It can be S-400, it can be others," he noted.