Turkey warns US over weapons

ANKARA: Turkey would retaliate if the US enacted a proposed law that would halt weapons sales to the country, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday.

Lawmakers in the US House of Representatives released details on Friday of a $717 billion (R9 trillion) annual defence policy bill, including a measure to temporarily halt weapons sales to Turkey.

In an interview with CNN Turk, Cavusoglu said the measures in the bill were wrong, illogical and not fitting between the Nato allies.

“If the US imposes sanctions on us or takes such a step, Turkey will absolutely retaliate,” Cavusoglu said. “What needs to be done is the US needs to let go of this.”

The proposed US National Defense Authorisation Act, which is several steps from becoming law, would ask the Defence Department to provide Congress with a report on the relationship between the US and Turkey, and would block the sale of major defence equipment until the report was complete.

Turkey has been planing to buy more than 100 of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, and had been in talks with Washington over the purchase of Patriot missiles.

Turkey signed an agreement with Russia in December to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries as part of Ankara’s plans to boost its defence capabilities amid threats from Kurdish and Islamist militants at home and conflicts across its borders in Syria and Iraq.

The move to buy S-400s, which are incompatible with the Nato systems, has unnerved Nato member countries, which are already wary of Moscow’s military presence in the Middle East, prompting Nato officials to warn Turkey of unspecified consequences.

Cavusoglu dismissed the warnings, saying Turkey’s relations and agreements with Russia were not an alternative to its ties with the West, and accused the US of trying to control Turkey’s actions.

“Turkey is not a country under your orders.”