Turkey, France and Italy have decided to continue exploring reviving the steps for the SAMP/T missile defense system, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Friday.
Erdoğan made the comments while speaking to reporters on his way back from Brussels where he attended an extraordinary summit of NATO leaders.
The president said he discussed the possibility of buying SAMP/T missile defense systems from the Franco-Italian Eurosam consortium with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi at the summit.
He reiterated that NATO is the cornerstone of European security and that Turkey is an indispensable ally for ensuring regional security.
In January 2018 while Erdoğan was on a visit to France, Turkish partners Aselsan and Roketsan inked a deal with Eurosam for the Long Range Air and Missile Defense Project for a period of 18 months. However, the process drew to a halt due to France's political stance, according to an earlier statement by Turkish defense officials.
Italy's Draghi, meanwhile, also said that Italy, Turkey and France will revive a cooperation group between the three countries.
"We decided to reactivate the group between Turkey, France and Italy, one of the cooperation platforms created over the years and then interrupted. Soon, the three countries will have a meeting," Draghi told the Italian press Thursday.
"The meeting we had with Erdoğan went well," he said while commenting on the meetings held on the sidelines of the NATO summit.
The three-country missile program aims to defend against threats from stealth aircraft, drones and missiles. The joint development activity was also expected to support Turkey’s indigenous air and missile development program in addition to opening up prospects for exports and longer-term cooperation of Turkey, Italy and France.
The Eurosam consortium is made up of European missile maker MBDA, itself a joint venture between Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo and Britain’s BAE Systems, and French defense contractor Thales, whose main shareholders are the French state and fighter jet maker Dassault Aviation.
On Turkey's purchase of the S-400 Russian air defense system, a topic that came to the fore once again with the Russia-Ukraine war, Erdoğan said Ankara's position on its acquisition is unchanged and the matter is a "done deal," adding that talks with Washington on new F-16 jets and kits were going well.
The United States imposed sanctions on NATO member Turkey's defense industry in December 2020 over the S-400s and expelled Ankara from the F-35 stealth fighter jet program, where it was a manufacturer and buyer. Ankara argues that the moves are unjust.
Erdoğan added that he hoped the positive talks on purchasing new F-16 jets and modernization kits from Washington would yield results soon.
He also dismissed reports that U.S. officials had informally raised with Turkey the unlikely possibility of sending the S-400 systems to Ukraine amid Russia's invasion, saying "all they do is cause commotion" in reference to Washington.
Turkey initially turned to the Russian missile system after failing to reach terms during protracted negotiations with the U.S. over the acquisition of Raytheon's Patriot surface-to-air missile systems.
