Turkey will purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems even if it agrees with the United States on the deliveries of surface-to-air missile systems Patriot, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Tuesday
ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2019) Turkey will purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems even if it agrees with the United States on the deliveries of surface-to-air missile systems Patriot, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Tuesday.Earlier this month, the Anadolu news agency reported that a US delegation in Ankara had made an official offer to Turkey to purchase Patriot systems. The media has not revealed any details on whether the US offer envisaged any preconditions regarding Ankara's earlier deal on the purchase of S-400 missile systems with Moscow.
"From our point of view, there is no link between the purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems and US Patriot systems, these topics are not interconnected in any way. Our position remains unchanged: we will do everything that we deem necessary to ensure our national security," Kalin told reporters.
He confirmed that the Turkish-US negotiations on the purchase of Patriot systems were underway.
"We have got a US proposal on Patriot [systems] but we have preconditions and expectations regarding the supplies, transfer of technologies and price. We will see from the ongoing talks with the United States whether the United States will be able to fully meet our demands," Kalin added.
The similar remarks on the lack of correlation between S-400 and Patriot purchases have earlier been made by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In December 2017, Russia and Turkey signed a loan agreement to supply S-400s to Ankara, with 55 percent of the $2.5 billion contract being covered by the Russian loans.
