ANKARA (Sputnik) — Russia and Turkey reached an agreement on purchases of the S-400 air defense systems, the negotiations on the price are underway, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.
"We agreed in principle with Russia on S-400 purchases. The negotiations on the joint production and prices are underway," Cavusoglu told the Haberturk newspaper.
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan may discuss the deliveries of S-400 systems to Turkey during talks in May.
On Monday, Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin also confirmed that the discussion was on the agenda of the upcoming talks between the Russian and Turkish leaders.
Negotiations on possible deliveries of the Russian air defense system to Turkey have been conducted by both parties since 2016. In March, Sergei Chemezov, Chief Executive Officer of Russia's state military equipment manufacturer Rostec, said that Turkey was ready to buy S-400 missile systems from Russia with a loan granted by Moscow.
The S-400 Triumph is Russia's next-generation mobile surface-to-air missile system carrying three different types of missiles capable of destroying aerial targets at a short-to-extremely-long range. It integrates a multifunctional radar, autonomous detection and targeting systems, anti-aircraft missile systems, launchers, and a command and control center.
