ANKARA (Middle East Eye) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that Turkey’s relations with the United States were not healthy and that Washington needed to “sort out” issues over Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 defense systems, according to broadcaster Haberturk.
Turkish-American relations have been plagued with tensions in recent years. Late last year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system and ejected Ankara from the NATO-led F-35 program to develop advanced fighter jets.
Washington has also angered Ankara with its military support for Kurdish militants in Syria that Turkey views as a threat to its national security.
“I cannot say that a healthy process is running in Turkish-American ties... We bought F-35s, we paid $1.4 billion and these F-35s were not given to us. The United States needs to first sort this out,” Haberturk quoted Erdogan as telling reporters after attending the UN General Assembly in New York.
Erdogan said Ankara would meet its defense needs from elsewhere if Washington did not help.
Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 is subject to the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which seeks to penalize any foreign government for working with the Russian defense sector.
Turkey has maintained that it only sought the Russian-made system after it tried, without success, to purchase the American Patriot missile defense system.
“Turkey had multiple opportunities over the last decade to purchase the Patriot defense system from the United States and instead chose to purchase the S-400, which provides Russia revenue, access, and influence,” Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby said earlier this year.
Turkey had greeted the election of U.S. President Joe Biden with some suspicion, fearing a hardening of the American stance towards Turkey on several issues.
In April, the Biden administration irked Ankara when it recognized the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces during World War II as genocide.