Russian President Vladimir Putin regards weapons deals with Turkey, a key member of NATO, as “a priority task” for his government.
“A priority task in the sphere of military technical cooperation is the implementation of the contract for supplies of S-400 Triumf missile systems to Turkey,” Putin told the Russia-Turkey Cooperation Council according to TASS, a state-run media outlet.
That’s a reference to a pending deal for an anti-aircraft defense system that Turkey wants to buy, cementing the closer relationship Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin have developed in recent years. The agreement raises the prospect of a NATO ally integrating its defenses with Russia at the expense of cooperation with other allies, as well as the potential for sanctions under U.S. law.
Putin doesn’t want to stop with anti-aircraft systems. “We hope that the sectoral intergovernmental commission will look into the prospects for further supplies of Russian-made military hardware to Turkey at its next meeting,” he said.
NATO has discouraged Turkey from finalizing the deal. “We really, really believe that it’s good for each country’s defense and greatest defense effectiveness if systems are interoperable, if they can operate with NATO systems,” NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller said in March. “And the S-400 is not interoperable with NATO systems.”
Gottemoeller emphasized that the agreement is a “sovereign decision” for Turkey to make, but the prospective deal raises a thorny diplomatic issue for President Trump. The law imposing new sanctions on Russia in response to interference in the 2016 elections requires the president to place sanctions on any country that strikes “highly-significant” agreements with Russia’s defense industry.
Congressional Democrats have already signaled that they want Trump to target Turkey if the deal goes through.
“We expect that any sale would result in designations,” New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and 11 other lawmakers wrote in a March 16 letter. “We remain deeply concerned that senior leadership in this administration is not prioritizing diplomatic efforts to implement CAATSA with countries around the world. We expect to be regularly briefed on the State Department’s sanctions implementation efforts moving forward.”
That’s a reference to the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which Turkish officials said would not stop them.
“Of course, there is a law that was enacted by the United States Congress, and they explained this legislation to us,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavosoglu said in February. “But on the other hand, this is our national security, and it’s important for our national security. I have emergency need of an air defense system. We want to purchase this from our allies, but this does not exist.”
The United States decided to withdraw Patriot missile defenses from Turkey in 2015, as the systems were needed elsewhere. But Turkey’s ability to buy additional weapons from western allies has been hampered by Erdogan’s authoritarian lurch and diplomatic feuding with European powers.
The State Department, for instance, refused to license a U.S. manufacturer to sell weapons to Erdogan’s security team after the Turkish president’s guards attacked anti-Erdogan protestors in Washington, D.C., last May.
“So even when we are purchasing small-scale arms . . . we have and we had difficulty in purchasing these because of these excuses, and I have an emergency need,” Cavosoglu said. “And the Russian Federation came up with attractive proposals for us.”
