MOSCOW: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday that the sooner Turkey received the S-400 missile defence system from Russia the better.
In response, Russia has decided to speed up initial deliveries of S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries to Turkey, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday, speaking at a press conference in Moscow together with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. Russia and Turkey agreed in December that Moscow would begin supplying the missile systems in the first quarter of 2020.
Ankara signed an agreement to buy the S-400 missile system from Russia in late December in a move which raised concern in the West because they cannot be integrated into NATO’s military architecture.