Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 is ‘done deal’: FM

<p style="text-align: left;">Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on March 29 said an agreement for the procurement of the Russian S-400 air defense system is a &amp;ldquo;done deal&amp;rdquo; and refuted claims that Turkey might ship the system to a third country in a bid to avoid United States&amp;rsquo; sanctions.

&ldquo;We have sealed an agreement with the Russian Federation and we are committed to this deal,&rdquo; Cavusoglu told reporters after a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Antalya.

The two ministers met in the Turkish minister&rsquo;s hometown to coordinate the future talks between the two countries, particularly on Syria and the sale of the S-400 anti-missile system.

The U.S. strongly opposes Turkey&rsquo;s decision to deploy the system on the grounds that it would endanger the safety of other NATO equipment, particularly the new generation F-35 aircrafts. Turkey is also a part of the F-35 project and expecting the deployment of the first two aircrafts by this fall.

&ldquo;We have signed a deal with Russia. Now we are discussing certain expectations on when the delivery will happen or what can we do. This deal is made before a CAATSA decision,&rdquo; he said, referring to the Countering America&rsquo;s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act approved in mid-2017.

Reporter&rsquo;s code: 50101

News Code 36036

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