Ankara to Deal on Russian S-400 with Moscow Amid Failure to Get It From NATO

ANKARA (Sputnik) — Turkey decided to procure Russia's S-400 air defense systems due to it had failed to get similar systems from NATO member states, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

"We were eager to get it from NATO member countries, but failed to get the necessary support from the US… The fact that we have entered such a defense cooperation with Russia does not mean the disruption of our obligations as a NATO member. We needed to move toward such a cooperation with Russia just to obliterate the threats against Turkey in the short term," Yildirim said during his visit to the United States as quoted by Anadolu on Saturday.

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Meanwhile, on September 12, 2017, Moscow and Ankara reached an agreement on the delivery of S-400 systems to Turkey. On September 29, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Kozhin confirmed that Turkey had made an up-front payment for the S-400s, adding that the delivery is scheduled for 2019. The Russia-Turkey talks on the delivery of the S-400 systems kicked off last year.

READ MORE:  Pentagon Told Turkey About Concerns Over S-400 Purchase From Russia

The S-400 Triumf (NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler) is Russia's next-generation mobile surface-to-air missile system equipped with three different types of missiles capable of destroying aerial targets at a short-to-extremely-long range.