The first S-400 shipment to Turkey had angered the US, Ankara’s NATO ally, which responded by imposing sanctions on Turkish defense officials.
A Russian state news agency reported earlier today that Russia and Turkey had signed a contract to send a second array of the S-400 anti-aircraft system to Ankara, but a Turkish defense official immediately disputed the report.
The TASS news agency quoted the head of Russia’s military cooperation service, Dmitry Shugayev, as saying: “I want to note that the relevant contract has already been signed. It involves the localization of the production of certain components of the system.’
Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 system in 2020 angered the United States, the country’s NATO ally, which imposed sanctions on Ankara.
A Turkish official said today, however, that “there are no new deals.”
“The original contract signed with Russia for the purchase of S-400s already included two batches. The purchase of the second lot was included in the original design and related contract,” said the official. “Therefore, we have no specific developments worth reporting. The process is ongoing and there are no new agreements,” he added.
Any new defense deal between Russia and Turkey would provoke serious backlash in Washington, at a time when it is trying to isolate Moscow while maintaining NATO unity in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey and Russia signed a first agreement in December 2017 to deliver Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile arrays, worth about $2.5 billion. The first deliveries of the system took place in July 2019. In response, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey’s defense industry in December 2020 and removed Ankara from the F-35 fighter jet production and purchase program.
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