Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed hope for his country's return to the American F-35 aircraft development program, despite disagreements with the United States over the Russian S-400 air defense systems. The head of the republic stated this in response to a request from Bloomberg agency.
Erdogan believes that denying Turkey the purchase of aircraft because of Russian weapons was "unfair." According to him, the issue of the F-35 has already been discussed in negotiations with his American counterpart Donald Trump at the White House.
With the return of Mr. Trump to the presidency, there is an opportunity to move to a more reasonable and positive approach in relations between Turkey and the United States.
The Turkish leader emphasized that Ankara hopes to achieve the desired result through negotiations with Washington.
About the situation around the S-400
In 2017, Turkey purchased 4 divisions of S-400 air defense systems from Russia. The deal was estimated at $2.5 billion. In the fall of 2019, Rosoboronexport (responsible for the supply of weapons and equipment to foreign customers) reported on the completion of the contract.
The American administration reacted to the purchase of the S-400s by excluding Turkey from the F-35 creation program. At that time, the Turkish side had paid $1.3 billion for the aircraft. The US authorities demanded that Ankara abandon the Russian systems.
