Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler stated that the U.S. no longer objects to the deployment of the Russian-purchased S-400 systems. “In our recent discussions with the Americans, we dismissed their demands concerning the S-400. Now, there are no objections from their side. All that remains is an order to send these systems to their designated locations. It would take approximately 12 hours to prepare them for operational use,” Guler said, as reported by T24.This was revealed by TASS, the Russian media house. Earlier US had also been cooperative with India when it bought S-400 Air Defence systems from Russia.
Earlier, Turkey was expelled from the F-35 development program after acquiring an S-400 system from Russia in 2019. The Pentagon had raised concerns that these defense systems could disclose sensitive data about American and NATO fighter jets, thus weakening their combat effectiveness.
Some Turkish media previously suggested that Ankara could rejoin the F-35 program by either not activating the S-400s or transferring them to a third party. Former U.S. Ambassador to Ankara, Jeff Flake, echoed this proposal. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has consistently emphasized that the end-user certificate in the arms sale agreement prohibits Turkey from selling the S-400 systems without Moscow’s approval. It remains to be seen if Turkey is allowed to deploy their S-400, as the Turkish Defence minister claims.
