WASHINGTON: Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defense missile systems should not trigger US sanctions because Ankara is not an adversary of Washington and remains committed to the NATO alliance, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday.
Akar also told a conference in Washington that Turkey expected to remain not just a buyer of advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets but also one of the partner countries involved in its production, despite US warnings that it would be shut out of the F-35 project if it buys the Russian S-400 defense system.
Turkey is carefully studying an offer from the United States to buy Patriot missile defense systems, Akar added.
