Turkey has an urgent need for an air defense system, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Thursday.
Speaking at a joint news conference with his Italian counterpart Angelino Alfano in Rome, Çavuşoğlu stressed that Turkey had to be able to protect its airspace, referring to the country's deal to purchase S-400 air defense systems from Russia.
"Recently, some of the NATO allies are putting up serious resistance to giving Turkey defense systems, including simple weapons, that we need. I need to build an air defense system. But I cannot buy it from my allies. Then I have to get it from somewhere else. I have an urgent need," Çavuşoğlu said.
In wake of a recent incident, which targeted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a NATO drill, the foreign minister emphasized that Turkey was not moving away from NATO.
"Turkey is not sliding anywhere, it stands where it is. Turkey has no problem with the EU. Every country pursues multidirectional foreign policy," Çavuşoğlu said, adding that Turkey also had such a right.
Turkey's top diplomat also rejected criticism over the country's close ties with Russia.
"Foreign ministers of NATO member states requested improvement in relations with Russia. As soon as we improved the relations, the same foreign ministers started criticizing us: 'Why are you so close with Russia?'" Çavuşoğlu said.
Turkey's need for an air missile defense system was exposed with the start of the civil war in Syria. The country has a sizeable ballistic missile stockpile able to strike a large portion of Turkey's territory.
Turkish officials were concerned that the missiles could be used by the Assad regime in case of a unilateral military conflict or an international military intervention, while the possibility of the missiles falling into the hands of a terrorist group posed a greater danger.
The country had to rely on Patriot batteries provided by its NATO allies Germany, the Netherlands and Spain during the conflict. They were withdrawn in 2015.
Turkey agreed to buy S-400 — Russia's most advanced long-range anti-aircraft missile system — in a more than $2 billion deal in September.