Turkey is Again Warned By the USA on the Russian S-400s

Turkey is Again Warned By the USA on the Russian S-400s

BRUSSELS (Belgium), April 30, 2018, Text: Bm News Team, Photo: NATO (left to right: Mevlut Cavusoglu (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Turkey); Mike Pompeo (US Secretary of State); NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg; Boris Johnson (UK Minister of Foreign Affairs)

The new top diplomat of the USA, Mike Pompeo, met his Turkish colleague at a Meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs at NATO Headquarters in Brussels on 27th April and used the opportunity to warn again Turkey on the consequences as a result of purchasing the Russian air defence system S-400, reported Shephard Media.

As already known the main argument of the USA against the S-400 air defence system is that the missile batteries and the radars cannot be integrated with the ones used by the NATO member states.

Another issue to which such a purchase could lead is its judging as a breach of a 2017 US sanctions law according to which customers of Russia’s arms and aerospace industries are to punished.

In 2017, the United States lawmakers passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Under the CAATSA, each entity that has business relations with Russia’s state, semi-state, and private defence and intelligence sectors could suffer economic sanctions.

So, a day after he was sworn in as the 70th US secretary of state on 26th April, Mike Pompeo, former CIA chief, raised the matter in a conversation with the Foreign Minister of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu.

After their conversation, a senior State Department official revealed to reporters that the meeting had been cordial and workmanlike and that Pompeo “urged Cavusoglu to closely consider NATO interoperable systems. And there was also a shared desire to find a common way forward on air defence for Turkey.”

Before the meeting, asked by a reporter if Ankara will eventually purchase the Russian S-400s, Cavusoglu referred to an already announced memorandum of understanding with Russia and asked: “You mean in addition to the ones we already bought?” and in an answer to a question about the delivery deadline, Cavusoglu said: “Russia is speeding up the process.”