US Concerned 'Only About Interoperability' of S-400 Systems Purchased by Turkey

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The only concern the United States has about the decision of its NATO ally Turkey to buy Russian S-400 air defense systems is that of interoperability, US Department of Defense spokesperson Capt. Jeff Davis said in a briefing on Monday.

"Our only concern about it is one of interoperability… but it is a Turkish decision," Davis told reporters.

The Russia-Turkey talks on the delivery of S-400 systems have taken place since 2016. In March, Sergei Chemezov, CEO of Russia’s Rostec Corporation, said Ankara was ready to buy the systems with a loan granted by Moscow. On July 18, Chemezov said technical issues of the contract for the supply of the S-400 systems to Turkey had been resolved, with only administrative ones remaining.

On Friday, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said only few nominal issues are left to clear up in a generally formalized contract on the delivery of Russia's S-400s to Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week that Ankara and Moscow had signed a document on supplies of the S-400 Triumf systems.

The S-400 Triumph is a next-generation mobile surface-to-air missile system that can carry three different types of missiles capable of destroying aerial targets at a short-to-extremely-long range. It is designed to track and destroy various types of aerial targets, from reconnaissance aircraft to ballistic missiles.