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Trump says Turkish purchase of S-400 is Obama’s fault
US President Donald Trump said Turkey is buying the Russian S-400 missile defence system because of mistakes by the Obama administration.
Speaking at the G20 summit in Osaka, President Trump said his predecessor refused a Turkish request to purchase US-made Patriot missiles, which he described as a “mess” and why President Recep Tayyip Erdogan turned to Russia to buy the new weapons system.
Trump said: “We have a complicated situation because the president was not allowed to buy the Patriot missiles, so he bought the other ones — the S-200s or S-400s. He’s a NATO member, and he’s someone I’ve become friendly with, and you have to treat people fairly. I don’t think he was treated fairly.”
Turkey says it had to buy the Russian weapons because the US has refused to supply them with their own advanced technology system. In 2013 the Obama administration agreed to sell Turkey American Patriot missiles, but declined the sale after Erdogan insisted that the purchase includes the technology so that Turkey could also develop and build its own missiles.
The purchase of the S-400 system has strained the US-Turkish relationship. Despite US security officials warning that the deployment endangers NATO security and Turkey’s participation in the US F-35 aircraft programme, Turkish officials describe the S-400 purchase as a “done deal”.
President Erdogan said that Trump assured him Turkey would not be sanctioned for the purchase, but the power to sanction is determined by the US Congress, which in 2017 passed legislation requiring penalties for countries that make major purchases of Russian military hardware.
US defence and intelligence are concerned that deploying both the S-400s and the F-35s — the very aircraft the Russian batteries are built to shoot down — on Turkish soil will harm NATO. Legislation to block the transfer of F-35s to Turkey once it receives the S-400s is already moving through the US Senate.
The Interfax news agency reported on Saturday that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow’s deal with Ankara also includes a partial handover of technologies.