Turkey does not back down on the S-400 missile system despite US sanctions

Turkey maintains the challenge and its independent stance despite not corresponding as it should to its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies. This position is expressed by the decision of the country chaired by Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to back down from its initiative to deploy Russian air defence systems such as the S-400 despite the sanctions imposed by the United States on the Ottoman nation for the purchase of this Russian-made military equipment.

The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, confirmed his nation's firmness and expressed his concern about the US sanctions. In an interview with 24 TV in Turkey, Cavusoglu said that Turkey is considering the steps to be taken in order to respond to the US sanctions, but he did not say what this response could mean. 

The USA decreed sanctions at the beginning of this week because of Turkey's acquisition of the advanced S-400 system from Russia under a US law known as CAATSA, which is intended to make the Russian influence decrease and at the same time protect the sphere of the Atlantic Alliance in this sense. The sanctions target Turkey's Defence Industries Presidency, the head of the presidency and three other senior officials.

The sanctions block any assets the four officials may have in US jurisdictions and prohibit their entry into the United States. They also include a ban on most export licences, loans and agency credits. The situation is exceptional because this is the first time that CAATSA has been used to penalise a US ally. 

"If we had to take a step back, we would have done it earlier," Cavusoglu said in response to a question about whether Turkey would cancel the S-400 agreement with Russia. Cavusoglu added in a threatening tone: "Now we are evaluating the impact of these sanctions in great detail ... and we will take the necessary measures".

The minister also criticised the sanctions as "legally and politically incorrect", arguing that the purchase of the Russian system by Turkey in 2017 precedes the CAATSA law.

Cavusoglu also referred to the new US president-elect and said that an improvement in relations between Turkey and the US giant would be conditioned on Joe Biden's ability to address Ankara's complaints.

The links between the two have been plagued by numerous disputes, including the imprisonment of US citizens and local consular staff, the US support for the Syrian Kurdish fighters considered as terrorists by Turkey and the continued residence in the US of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric accused of planning the 2016 coup attempt. An episode that is serving as an excuse for Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government to carry out purges in official and military bodies in order to eliminate opponents. 

Prior to these sanctions, the United States had previously expelled Turkey from the concession of its F-35 fighter programme, favouring Greece, one of the Eurasian country's great rivals in the Mediterranean. From US military circles, it is thought that the use of these aircraft together with Russian technology would endanger the safety of the fighter planes. Moreover, Washington considers that the Russian system would not be interoperable with NATO systems.