Russia began to supply Turkey with S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems. On Friday, July 12, three An-124 aircraft landed in the republic with elements of these air defense systems.
“Today, three scheduled flights to Turkey have arrived, and today the delivery of the air defense system is completed. In the coming days, the delivery process will continue. The training of Turkish personnel in Russia and Turkey also continues, ”said Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar.
As noted in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the remaining components of these systems will be transferred to Ankara in a timely manner.
“Delivery of the rest of the system to Turkey will be carried out in strict accordance with the terms of the contract concluded with the Turkish side and within the time limits agreed by the parties,” the ministry stressed.
According to the Turkish Defense Ministry, the first batch of components of the "Triumph" was delivered to the Murted airbase near Ankara.
At the same time, where exactly the Russian S-400 will be deployed, the Turkish military do not report. The local edition of Milli gazete, citing unnamed sources in the Turkish Defense Ministry, claims that the first battery of the Russian anti-aircraft missile system will be placed in Sanliurfa province, bordering Syria.
Another battery, according to the publication, will appear either in the province of Hatay, or in the province of Mersin. In this case, the air defense system will cover Turkey, not only from the Syrian border, but also in the Mediterranean, the newspaper said.
The negotiations between Moscow and Ankara regarding the supply of four C-400 divisions became known three years ago. This was announced on November 18, 2016, by the Minister of Defense of Turkey, Fikri Ishik. On September 12, 2017, the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation confirmed that the parties had entered into a contract worth $ 2.5 billion.
"This is not allied"
Shortly after the news of the deal, its NATO partners, and in particular, the United States, expressed their dissatisfaction with Ankara’s decision. Washington has repeatedly demanded to terminate the contract, threatening the Turkish side with restrictive measures and suspending its participation in the program to create American fifth-generation fighter-bombers F-35. In exchange for the S-400, the White House offered its Turkish partners to buy Patriot complexes. However, the leadership of the Turkish Republic, despite the unfriendly rhetoric from overseas, remained committed to agreements with Moscow.
As US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed in late June, the United States is considering the possibility of imposing sanctions on Turkey for the purchase of C-400. Washington believes that the Russian air defense system can be used to gather intelligence information about NATO, and therefore its purchase by a member country of the alliance should be excluded.
“We do not want the Russian systems to reveal the abilities of our Stealth. You cannot have both systems at the same time, ”said Kay Bailey Hutchison, US Permanent Representative to NATO, at a briefing in Brussels on June 25, ahead of the meeting of NATO defense ministers.
The actual start of Russian Triumph shipments to Turkey was extremely worried about the North Atlantic bloc.
“The Alliance is deeply concerned about this situation. The Secretary General has repeatedly stated earlier that each NATO country has the right to independently make decisions on the types of weapons used, however, the Russian systems will be incompatible with the NATO integrated missile defense system, and this
is a problem, ”said the press service of the alliance.
As noted in an interview with the news agency TASS representative
The White House administration, the US leadership is aware that Turkey accepted the first delivery of the C-400, and this is also considered a “problem” in Washington.
The decision of the republic to place on its territory Russian-made air defense systems was also criticized in the US Senate.
“Turkey made a very bad choice. This is not allied. If Turkey does not change its course, it will not receive F-35 aircraft, and in response to any step in deploying Russian C-400 systems, according to US law, sanctions should immediately follow, ”Democratic Senator Chris Van wrote on Friday Hollen from Maryland.
Turkey has made a very bad choice. This is not the conduct of an ally. The S-400 system will be met with the United States. https://t.co/1HfWFnJuwp
- Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) July 12, 2019Trump Factor
Political analysts are paying attention to the fact that deliveries of the S-400 began after negotiations between Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the margins of the Osaka summit. According to the Turkish leader, the head of the White House assured him that there will be no US sanctions against Turkey for the purchase of Russian air defense system.
It is noteworthy that at the press conference following the summit, these words of Erdogan Trump did not confirm, but did not refute either. At the same time, the US president said that the United States behaved dishonestly with Turkey in the matter of supplying C-400. According to Trump, Erdogan at one time wanted to purchase Patriot complexes from the Americans, but the administration of Barack Obama refused Turkey. After that, according to the American president, Erdogan decided to turn to Russia.
“He made an agreement, he spent money, invested a lot of money. As soon as he bought them (C-400), people from our country called him and said: listen, we don’t want you to buy these systems, because these are not NATO systems, ”said Trump.
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump
- Reuters
- © Kevin Lamarque
The US president does not want to confront an ally, as its consequences for relations between the two countries may be extremely undesirable, the American press comments on the situation.
“If the United States excludes Turkey from the F-35 program and imposes sanctions on a NATO ally, this will mark one of the biggest crises in relations between the two countries in modern history,” states Reuters.
In turn, Timothy Ash, an analyst at the British investment company Bluebay Asset Management, cited by CNBC, suggested that “if Turkey manages to avoid sanctions for purchasing C-400, other NATO countries will queue to buy Russian systems, which often have very good indicators by the criterion of "cost - efficiency" and are supplied on non-commercial terms. "
According to political analysts, the US president is well aware that an attempt to exert pressure on the Turkish president on the issue of arms transfers in the current situation will not reach the goal. Moreover, it can lead to the opposite effect - to deepen the cooperation of Ankara with the geopolitical rivals of the United States.
“Erdogan acts in line with the national interests of his country. The Turkish authorities have long said that they are extremely dissatisfied with how they are spoken to in the West, including when it comes to military-strategic issues. But Turkey, according to Erdogan, was not heard. Therefore, the Turkish leader is determined to act in his own way, without looking at the West, ”said Yuri Mavashev, director of the Center for the Study of New Turkey, in an interview with RT.
“The expectations were not justified”
In recent years, relations between Turkey and the United States have steadily deteriorated, and the story of the S-400 procurement is only one of those, said Vladimir Avatkov, director of the Center for Oriental Studies of International Relations and Public Diplomacy. The peak of the confrontation between the two countries was Trump's decision to increase duties on Turkish steel and aluminum in August 2018.
“The Turkish army is being strengthened and modernized. Therefore, it needs new weapons. Erdogan expected a longtime ally of the United States to help him. These expectations were not met. For a long time, the Americans were not ready to meet one of their key allies in the Middle East region. Against this background, Turkey decided to strengthen cooperation with Russia in the field of security, ”Avatkov said in the RT comment.
Experts predict that the start of S-400 deliveries to Turkey will provoke in the US a wave of discussions about the need to choose a line of conduct with regard to Erdogan and further rapprochement between Ankara and Moscow. Analysts say that the position of supporters of punishment of Turkey for cooperation with Russia in the United States is quite strong. Particularly actively advocate the introduction of restrictive measures against Turkey's opponents of Trump from the Democratic Party.
“Most likely, a struggle will unfold between the administration of the US President and the legislators. Congress will seek to impose sanctions against Turkey, the White House will try to prevent it. I don’t think that in this case the congress will prevail. After all, relations between Turkey and the United States right now are a solid barrel of tar. And they need to be restored, and not worsen further, and many in America understand this well, ”Mavashev believes.
In turn, Vladimir Avatkov notes that Russia and Turkey have developed strong bilateral relations in the field of economics. In his opinion, the deal on S-400, as well as cooperation on Syria, will bring the two countries closer in security.
“We are not talking about some immediate insult that the Americans did not hear Ankara, but about a principled decision. Erdogan believes that it is now beneficial for Turkey to diversify its international contacts in order to maintain its status as a regional leader. Therefore, Ankara interacts with Russia, and with China, and with many other countries with which it used to cooperate much less. Now Erdogan’s course is as follows: it is necessary to expand contacts not with the EU, NATO and the USA, but with individual countries of the EU and NATO, in particular, Hungary and Germany, as well as countries of the Eurasian region. The deal on S-400 corresponds to this course, ”Mavashev sums up.