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Due to the use of the Russian S-400 missile defense system, the United States is imposing sanctions on its NATO ally, Turkey. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday. Specifically, all arms deals with Turkey will be stopped because the State Armaments Agency (SSB) will no longer receive any American licenses.
In addition, visa restrictions are imposed on SSB chief Ismail Demir and three other employees of the arms agency, he said. Pompeo also stressed that Turkey was a “valuable ally” of the United States and an important security partner in the region and that they wanted continued cooperation in the defense sector.
The US Congress snatched the decision on sanctions from President Donald Trump, who covered his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a long time. Turkey had bought the high-tech system a year and a half ago, violating a broad US sanctions law.
The United States feared that Russia could use the sensitive radar of the S-400 weapons system to obtain data on the stealth capabilities of the F-35 aircraft. Ankara was a partner in the construction of the F-35 fighter jet and wanted to buy many of the planes. Due to the arms deal with Moscow, the United States has already excluded Turkey from the F-35 program. A few days ago, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and James Lankford wrote in a guest article for the “Wall Street Journal” that the use of Russian “advisers” and S-400 radar near F-35 fighter jets was unacceptable.
the Turkey ordered two S-400 batteries from the Russian state arms company Almas-Antei in April 2017 for a price of 2.5 billion dollars (2.23 billion euros). Each S-400 battery consists of a mobile command center, several radar stations, and up to twelve launchers with four missiles each.
