Turkey to Design Own Air Defense System With Help of 2 NATO Members

ANKARA (Sputnik) — On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would seek the technological independence from defense imports and enhance its own defense production industry, based on the country's capacities and resources.

In May, Isik said that despite the fact that Ankara is planning to purchase Russian S-400 systems, Ankara's main objective was to produce it own components for an air defense system.

"Coordination of all technical issues is completed, and we are in the final stage of making a decision about purchasing the S-400s from Russia. We will fulfill our urgent needs both by purchasing S-400s and designing our own air defense systems in cooperation with France and Italy," Isik said in an interview to TRT broadcaster.

The negotiations on possible supplies of the Russian S-400 air defense systems to Turkey have taken place since 2016. On June 3, 2017, the CEO of Russia's Rostec Corporation, Sergey Chemezov, confirmed that Russia and Turkey have agreed on all technical aspects of the deal on supplies of S-400 missile systems, and Moscow is currently considering the possibility of providing Ankara with a loan for the purchase of these weapons.

The S-400 Triumph is Russia's next-generation mobile surface-to-air missile system and can carry three different types of missiles capable of destroying aerial targets at a short-to-extremely-long range.