ANKARA, November 18. /TASS/. Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik has said that Ankara is in talks with Moscow regarding the purchase of S-400 air defense systems. He made the statement when asked about Turkey’s plans for building up its air defense potential.
"We are conducting talks with Russia over the S-400s. But we also go ahead with contacts with other countries on this issue. Russia’s stance is positive," he said.
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Isik hopes that Turkey’s multilateral talks will encourage NATO to come up with a more serious initiative and his country will have a system meeting the alliance’s requirements.
"But this does not mean that we will ignore Russia’s proposals. We are pushing ahead with pro-active work (with Russia - TASS) in this direction. Our ultimate goal is to start producing these systems on our own," Isik said.
The Turkish authorities in 2013 considered bids submitted in a tender for providing air defense systems and made a decision to continue specific discussions with a Chinese manufacturer of long-range air defense systems. On the short list of applicants China placed first, the United States with its system Patriot second, and Italian-French concern Eurosam with the SAM/T system third. Russia’s Antey-2500 proposed by Rosoboronexport participated too, but was eventually rejected after appraisal.
The talks with China ended last November as the parties failed to eliminate a number of disagreements, including those over technology transfer and joint production. The authorities then made a decision to cancel the bidding contest altogether. The issue of purchasing air defense systems or launching their joint production began to be discussed at the government level again last spring.