{"id":40121,"date":"2019-07-15T20:22:55","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T20:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40121"},"modified":"2019-07-15T20:22:55","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T20:22:55","slug":"erdogan-says-turkey-aims-to-produce-s-400s-jointly-with-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40121","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan says Turkey aims to produce S-400s jointly with Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan<\/a>\u00a0of Turkey has hailed the controversial delivery of a Russian missile defence system despite the threat of US sanctions, saying the next step would be to jointly produce S-400s with Moscow.<\/p>\n

The first batch of the Russian S-400 equipment was delivered to Turkey<\/a> in recent days even after repeated US calls to cancel the deal or face punishment.<\/p>\n

“We have begun to receive our S-400s. Some said ‘they cannot buy them’\u2026 God willing the final part of this [delivery] will be in April 2020,” Erdogan told a crowd of thousands on Monday\u00a0<\/span>in Ankara as Turkey marked the third anniversary of a bloody coup attempt.<\/p>\n

“Now the aim is joint production with Russia. We will do that,” he said.<\/p>\n

Sanctions coming?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The US threatened Turkey with sanctions and has already started removing it from the F-35 fighter jet programme. Washington says the Russian missile system is a threat to the F-35s and that Turkey can’t have both.<\/p>\n

The Turkish leader has previously said he does not believe Washington will impose sanctions since the two countries are “strategic allies”.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear when and where the S-400s will be fully installed, but Turkey will be the first NATO member to operate the Russian surface-to-air defence system, which can hit targets as far as 400km away.<\/p>\n

The ninth Russian plane carrying S-400 parts landed at the Murted military base in Ankara on Monday, the defence ministry said.<\/p>\n

Formerly known as the Akinci base, it was renamed after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt by a faction of the military. Akinci was reportedly where many soldiers who backed the putsch were based.<\/p>\n

Failed coup d’etat<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The anniversary comes at a difficult moment for Erdogan. He faces a weakened economy, worsening relations with NATO ally the US over the S-400 purchase, and a humiliating loss for his party in the recent Istanbul local election.<\/p>\n

Nearly 250 people were killed – excluding the coup-plotters – and more than 2,000 wounded after a rogue military faction tried to wrest power from the president. Thousands took to the streets in response to Erdogan’s call to defeat the uprising.<\/p>\n

Relations with the West deteriorated after the coup bid as Turkish officials accused the West of not giving Ankara sufficient support.<\/p>\n

Since then, Erdogan has grown closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin, raising concerns in Europe and the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u00a0of Turkey has hailed the controversial delivery of a Russian missile defence system despite the threat of US sanctions, saying the next step would be to jointly produce S-400s with Moscow. The first batch of the Russian S-400 equipment was delivered to Turkey in recent days even after repeated US calls to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}