Turkey: buying S-400 defence system from Russia a ‘closed issue’

Turkey’s Presidential Spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, has said that the purchase of the S-400 missile defence system from Russia is a “closed issue” as he stressed that his country, which has the second largest army within NATO, needs such a system. Kalin made the comment earlier this week to CNN’s Becky Anderson.

“We have told the Americans and others, that the whole S-400 file is closed,” he explained. “We are not thinking of sending it anywhere.”

Kalin suggested that if the US wants to help a NATO ally like Turkey, it could do so by selling it the Patriot missile defence system “and other quality weapons that the Turkish army needs.”

The senior aide of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that they believe it is wrong for [NATO] allies to sanction each other. “I think this war in Ukraine has once again shown the significance of this principle. We have to be united not in words, but in action.”

If a NATO country refrained from selling defence systems to its allies, he added, what kind of alliance is it?

Anderson asked Kalin how he could look the Ukrainian president straight in the eye when he is in desperate need of something like the S-400 system. He replied that she should ask the question of the other allies who own defence systems more developed than the S-400.

READ: Turkiye FM says Russia, Ukraine ‘close to agreement’