The Turkish president told Hurriyet Daily News: “We will not only buy the S-400s and put them in stock, we will use them if necessary, they are defense systems, what are we going to do with them if we do not use them?”
He said Turkey offered Russia to jointly produce advanced S-500 air defense systems, during an interview with broadcaster 24 TV on 13 June.
“Russia has given us a loan for the S-400 on very reasonable terms. In the second and third stages, we will proceed to joint production. Maybe we will co-produce S-500,” Erdogan said while making critical remarks towards the NATO allies over their unwillingness to sell arms to Turkey or jointly produce them.
When Ankara requested similar weapons from the US, its requests were rejected. According to the president, Turkey is “tired” of being treated in this way.
“Russia reacts to our requests with a very attractive proposal. They [Russians] said they will even do joint production […] They offered us good loan conditions,” he said.
“I have contacted President Putin with a proposal about the joint production of the S-500.” Erdogan has not yet provided info about a Russian response on the S-500 joint production proposal.
In December 2017, Ankara officially signed a $2.5 billion agreement with Moscow on the delivery of S-400 air defense systems. Turkey will be the first NATO member country to acquire the system.
According to data from the Turkish media, the country will buy two batteries of S-400 missiles which will be manned by Turkish military personnel.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wess Mitchell warned Turkey that buying the S-400 could negatively influence the supply of US F-35s.
The head of the Department of Cyber Defense, Christian Liflander, stressed that the weapons of Russian production are incompatible with the corresponding systems that are in service of NATO members.