Turkey's S-400s : To procure what kind of systems is a national decision - NATO's Stoltenberg

Turkey
# 05 April 2019 10:55 (UTC +04:00)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that he hopes it is possible to find a solution to a disagreement between Turkey and the U.S., ONA reports citing NATO's website.

Answering to the question on Turkey's procurement of S-400s and the U.S. reaction to this, Secretary-General said that this is "a national decision what kind of systems different NATO Allies procure."

He added that the issue is not on the agenda of the Ministerial meeting.

"But NATO provides a platform, including this meeting, for dialogue between Allies on this issue and that’s one of the important reasons why we welcome that NATO is able to provide a platform for also addressing issues where there are disagreements between NATO Allies, for instance on the issue related to the S-400 and the involvement, or the planned delivery of F-35s to Turkey. We have to remember that NATO is augmenting the air defenses of Turkey and we do that by deploying Patriot batteries, Spanish Patriot batteries to Turkey, and also Italy is deploying SAMP/T batteries, augmenting the Turkish air defenses. I also welcome the fact that there is an ongoing dialogue between the United States and Turkey on delivery of Patriot systems to Turkey, and also that there is a dialogue going on between Turkey, Italy, and France, looking into the possibility of delivering a French/Italian system, SAMP/T."

"I hope that it's possible to find a solution to this issue because we see now that this is an issue where there is disagreement between two Allies; Turkey and United States," Stoltenberg said.

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