ANKARA
A senior U.S. Republican senator on Sunday said sanctions would be "required under law" if Turkey "activates" the S-400 air defense systems bought from Russia, adding that he wanted to avoid a potential conflict with a NATO ally.
During an interview with CBS News, Lindsey Graham said the Senate recently passed legislation banning the sale of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkey if they activate the Russian S-400 missile battery.
Since 2017, Turkey and the U.S. have been at odds over Turkey's decision to buy the S-400, a Russian-made missile defense system, and U.S. threats to break its contract to sell Turkey F-35 jets over the dispute.
To defend its air space, Turkey has long sought to purchase U.S.-made Patriot missiles, yet, Washington chose to ignore its ally's national interests and rebuffed Turkey’s overtures.
Despite threats from American officials for Turkey to abandon its deal with Russia, Turkish officials have described the transaction as a "done deal."
"There's no way we're going to transfer to Turkey the F-35 technology and let them buy a Russian missile battery at the same time. It would compromise our platform," said Graham, who was in Turkey for a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara at the time of the interview.
However, Graham also stressed the importance of Turkey as a strategic NATO ally and urged the two countries "to find a way out of this dilemma."
"They've [Turkey] helped us in Syria. They're a NATO ally, President Trump's right that the last administration probably was too hard. They should have sold them the Patriot U.S. missile battery to protect Turkish airspace," Graham said.
"The way around this is to get Turkey to back off activating the S-400, replace it with a Patriot missile battery that is NATO compliant. I don't want a conflict with Turkey. They're a very important ally, particularly when it comes to Syria and the region," he added.
Productive Trump-Erdogan meeting in Japan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump told Turkey: "if you activate the S-400, we'll find a way around sanctions."
Asked about the S400 - F35 tension between the U.S. and Turkey, at the end of discussions on Saturday at the sidelines of the G20 Leaders' Summit in Japan, Trump said he could not turn a blind eye to Turkey's unfair treatment by the former U.S. administration, referring to Barack Obama's reluctance to sell U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems Turkey sought to purchase in 2013.
"Obama administration said no, no, no to Turkey when they wanted to purchase Patriots and they [Turkey] bought S-400," Trump said.
Blaming the previous administration for the ongoing S400 - F35 tensions, Trump said they were the fault of neither Turkey nor Erdogan.
Trump went on to say in his closing speech at Osaka that he gets along very well with Erdogan who is very "tough" in defending Turkey's national interests.
Trump said Turkey has a "big army" and that Turks are "big fighters".
Trump said he is on the same page with Erdogan on Syria's Idlib province as well because Erdogan "doesn’t want to see 3 million people killed", and neither does he.
Trump reiterated the view of his administration that Turkey was right to proceed with its S-400 purchase from Russia after its initiatives to procure U.S. systems did not yield results.
"So he then went to Russia and he bought the S-400. Made a deal to buy it because he couldn’t get it. They wouldn’t allow him to buy it. He paid them a lot of money. And he bought it. As soon as he bought it, people went back to him, from our country, and they said, 'Listen, we don’t want you to use that system,' because it's not the NATO system, et cetera, et cetera -- you know all the reasons," Trump said.
He said "there was nothing" Ankara could do because it already bought it.
F-35 deliveries to Turkey
Trump emphasized that Turkey's purchase of the S-400s and F-35s at the same time was considered incompatible from the standpoint of the U.S. only and not from the standpoint of technical compatibility or strategic data transfer to Russia.
He said Turkey has bought over a hundred F-35s, with "options for more".
"And now he wants delivery. He's paid a tremendous amount of money, up front to Lockheed [F-35 manufacturer] -- our company, our jobs, everything. But, honestly, I'm all for our country, but he [Erdogan] got treated very unfairly," Trump said.
"The problem is he already bought the planes. And the planes aren’t compatible from our standpoint. Not from the standpoint of compatibility, but from our standpoint, national security-wise. So it's a mess. It's a mess. And honestly, it's not really Erdogan's fault," he said.
