Russia: Arms sale 'only concerns us and Turkey'

Russian S-400 air defence system, seen during a military parade in Moscow, Russia [Wikipedia]

NATO and other international bodies and countries do not have a right to criticise Turkey’s purchase of defence systems from Russia, the latter’s foreign ministry said today.

“It only concerns us and Turkey,” head of the NATO division in the Russian foreign ministry’s Department of European Cooperation, Kirill Logvinov said, when asked to comment on the alliance member states’ concerns regarding the S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile systems deal with Ankara.

“If our Turkish colleagues are interested in these types of weapons, if they are ready for negotiations, they are interested in supplying, we are here open [for talks] to any country, regardless of membership in this or that military and political bloc,” Logvinov added.

Turkey completed the purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles earlier this month, a move which some NATO member states have seen as a snub to the alliance.

The defence system, which cost $2 billion, is to be delivered in 2019.

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