Turkey will use Russian S-400 air defense systems it plans to acquire from Russia "if necessary," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday in an interview.
"We will not just buy the S-400s and place them in a storehouse. We will use them if need be. This is a defense system. What are we going to do with it if not use this defense system? Are we going to depend on the U.S. again? When we have been demanding from them for years, the answer that has been given to us is: The [U.S.] Congress is not allowing. We are tired of this," Erdoğan said.
In December, Russia and Turkey signed a loan agreement for supplying S-400 air defense systems to Ankara. U.S. officials have repeatedly said that Washington is seeking to discourage Turkey from contacts with the Russian defense sector, which is a target of U.S. sanctions.
In August 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) into law. The legislation allows the United States to impose sanctions on entities and individuals that operate on behalf of Russia's defense or intelligence sectors, as well as those engaging in transactions with these sectors.
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"Russia has responded to our offer with a pretty alluring offer. They said they would even get into a joint production. And with respect to loans, they have offered us pretty good loan terms. Right now, we are running this process as this," the president said.
Ankara had expressed its readiness to jointly look into potential consequences of deploying S-400s, stressing that it had chosen a 19-month delivery instead of a quicker option, so that the systems could operate under Ankara’s full control.
Ankara and Washington are in talks over the procurement of the Patriot missile system. In April, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ said Turkey and the U.S. have not yet negotiated the purchase of the U.S. Patriot missile systems by Turkey.
The issue of the procurement of S-400 systems was raised during the meeting between Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu with his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo in Washington on June 4, Turkish media reported on June 7, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.
According to these sources, the main U.S. demand from Ankara was the cancellation of the purchase of S-400s on the grounds that it could trigger sanctions on Turkey. Turkish officials reportedly rejected Washington’s calls, insisting that these systems would be bought and deployed since the country needed them.
Following the rejection on the purchase of these systems, U.S. officials hinted that "Turkey should not use the S-400s even if it does buy them from Russia," the sources said.
