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Nato knowledgeable cautions towards additional US sanctions on Turkey over S-400s
MEE employees
Tue, 11/23/2021 – 16:57
An impartial Nato knowledgeable warned on Tuesday that additional US sanctions towards Turkey over its buy of a Russian-made missile defence system would solely profit Washington’s adversaries Moscow and China.
Talking at an occasion hosted by the German Marshall Fund, Tacan Ildem, a member of the Nato Specialists Group and adviser to Nato Secretary Normal Jens Stoltenberg, careworn the significance for nations within the alliance to share army know-how “in order that particular person allies denied from such applied sciences wouldn’t exit of Nato sources”.
“A real dialogue is required to resolve this S-400 situation as a result of I can’t comprehend a state of affairs by which one ally imposes sanctions to a different, particularly at a time once we discuss systemic strategic competitors,” mentioned Ildem, a former Turkish diplomat.
“And I guarantee that it could be Russia and China who could be happy with the implementation of sanctions by one ally to a different.”
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Turkey’s buy of the Russian S-400 weapons system has triggered pressure among the many two Nato allies.
Ankara has mentioned that it solely sought the Russian system after it tried to buy the American Patriot missile defence system. Washington, nonetheless, has acknowledged that Turkey had a number of possibilities to buy the American system however nonetheless selected to buy from Moscow.
Final December, Washington imposed sanctions on Turkish officers below the Countering America’s Adversaries By means of Sanctions Act, a legislation that bars vital army transactions with Russia as a result of its preliminary deal to obtain the primary S-400 system.
Turkish officers held a collection of conferences with the Biden administration earlier this yr to resolve the problem however neither facet may attain an answer to take away the sanctions.
Turkey has but to totally activate the already bought S-400 system, so as to forestall any additional escalation with Washington.
A Turkish official beforehand advised Center East Eye that they believed Russia had been attempting to handle a notion marketing campaign by releasing deceptive statements and trying to “poison [our] relations with the USA”.
Ildem, who has beforehand served as Turkey’s ambassador to Nato and likewise as the previous assistant secretary basic of the alliance, mentioned that there’s room to enhance ties between Ankara and Washington but it surely doesn’t seem like a precedence for the US.
“We see that there’s a lack of enthusiasm to have interaction with Turkey,” he mentioned.
F-35 programme
Along with resolving the row over the S-400s, Ildem mentioned that “Turkey ought to be again within the F-35 programme and it shouldn’t be denied from procuring after the F-35s”.
Turkey was faraway from the fifth-generation F-35 fighter jet programme by the Pentagon in 2019 as a result of considerations over potential Russian espionage by means of the S-400s.
Regardless of being ejected from the programme, Turkey has paid $1.4bn for the event and manufacturing of F-35s over time.
Lately, Turkey has shifted away from searching for a return to the F-35 programme, and as an alternative has mentioned it’s in talks to reuse the cash it has already paid in the direction of buying a set of F-16 fighter jets and modernising its current fleet.
Whereas the Biden administration has but to touch upon the Turkish request to buy the planes, it could face stiff opposition in Congress. A number of members of Congress have already despatched a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging the administration to reject the potential sale.
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