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By Shannon Tiezzi
President Tayyip Erdogan indicated that Turkey was discussing alternate bids for its missile defense system.
Turkey is re-thinking its decision to purchase a long-range missile defense system from China, Reuters reports, citing comments made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the television channel NTV. Turkey is seeking to buy a surface-to-air missile that can be used for anti-missile defense and is willing to devote up to $4 billion to the project.
Turkey first awarded the contract to China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corp. (CPMEIC) in September of 2013, to the dismay of many NATO officials. French-Italian firm Eurosam came in second, with U.S. company Raytheon Co. in third. CPMEIC is under U.S. sanctions for its alleged arms sales to Iran and North Korea, among other countries. U.S. officials were also concerned about the security risks that might arise from integrating a Chinese system with NATO’s command and control network. When Turkey announced that CPMEIC had won the bid, a State Department spokesperson said that the U.S. government had “conveyed our serious concerns about the Turkish Government’s contract discussions with a U.S. sanctioned company for a missile defense system that will not be interoperable with NATO systems or collective defense capabilities.”
Despite the announcement in September 2013, the Turkish government has been sending signals that the decision was not quite a done deal. Turkey asked for bids to be re-submitted in May, and apparently Turkey found French-Italian firm Eurosam’s new bid enticing. “Our talks with France are continuing,” Erdogan indicated, even while noting that negotiations with the Chinese firm were on-going as well.
Read the full story at The Diplomat