Explained Turkey’s willingness to sacrifice relations with the United States for the S-400

Turkey is adamant about the acquisition of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, including because of the decline in trust between Ankara and Washington. This is stated in the article The National Interest.

The material notes that there are several reasons for the rapprochement of Turkey and Russia in the issue of military supplies. The most serious of them is the discrepancy between the positions of the Turkish and American authorities on the situation in the Middle East — clearly manifested itself against the background of the Civil War in Syria.

Thus, the United States provides support to Kurdish groups on Syrian territory, while Ankara considers them one of the main threats to its security. At the same time, threats to destroy the Turkish economy in the event of an attack on the Kurds show that the Americans are ready to sacrifice an ally. As a result, Turkey is actively approaching Russia in this field.

The publication notes that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has his own accounts with Washington. The head of state has repeatedly accused him of cooperation with the opposition preacher Fethullah Gulen, who is credited with organizing the attempted military coup in Turkey in 2016.

The National Interest also emphasizes that the mutiny showed a serious failure in defense: the country did not have ways to fight off its own American fighters, which were used by the conspirators. The security gap in the background of the arms embargo and many conflicts (including around hydrocarbon reserves in the Mediterranean Sea) and led Ankara to the need to create a non-US missile defense system.

Earlier in June, it became known that the administration of US President Donald Trump is not going to be limited to the refusal to sell Turkey F-35 fighters for the purchase of S-400 and is considering the introduction of three additional packages of sanctions. It was reported that restrictive measures can be applied in July.

Erdogan, in turn, refused to believe in the imposition of sanctions and threatened Washington with courts for disrupting the deal on the F-35. He also stressed that the purchase is a decided case.

In the US and other NATO countries fear that if Ankara will be in service and the S-400, and F-35, the Russian radar systems will learn to calculate and track American fighters.