Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system in July raised the prospect of US sanctions, and the State Department has said an offer to sell Raytheon’s Patriot missile defense system to Ankara has expired.
However Erdogan told Reuters he had discussed buying Patriots in a phone call with Trump two weeks ago and would follow up when they meet at the UN General Assembly, which opens next week.
“I said no matter what package of ... S-400s we get, we can buy from you a certain amount of Patriots,” Erdogan told Reuters on Friday, September 13.
“But I said we have to see conditions that at least match up to the S-400s,” Erdogan said, adding that he was referring to the possibility of joint production and favorable lending terms.
“He [Trump] said: ‘Are you serious?’ I said: ‘Yes’,” Erdogan said, adding that he told Trump they would discuss it in greater detail when they meet.
Asked whether he would also ask Trump to prevent the US Treasury imposing a heavy fine on Turkey’s mainly state-owned Halkbank for violating US sanctions on Iran, Erdogan said he was confident they could avoid such a “mistake”, citing what he said was “a different kind of trust” between the two men.
“In my opinion a country like the USA will not want to hurt its ally Turkey any more. This is not a rational behavior,” he said in an interview at the Ottoman Dolmabahce palace complex on the Bosphorus in Istanbul.
Erdogan and Trump will also discuss plans to establish what Turkey describes as a safe zone along 450 km of Syrian border stretching from the Euphrates river to the Iraq border, a region controlled mainly by US-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters.
On Sunday the two countries launched joint military patrols in the area, but Erdogan says that Washington has dragged its feet in an operation Turkey sees as crucial to driving the YPG, which it designates a terrorist group, away from its border.
Turkey has warned it will act alone if the safe zone is not established this month, raising the prospect of a third Turkish military incursion into northern Syria in three years.
“The peace corridor is the essential thing. We will not allow a terror corridor on our borders and we will take whatever steps are necessary on this subject,” he said.
The US alliance with the YPG in Syria has angered NATO member Turkey, which has faced a decades-long insurgency in its mainly Kurdish southeast and fears growing Kurdish military power on its southern border.
“It is Turkey which is fighting with these terror groups... We are your partner in NATO. You give them the weapons for free that you will not sell for money to your NATO ally,” he said, referring to US arms supplies to the YPG.
“We are fed up with explaining this... I think Trump must understand us,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan reiterated a warning that Turkey would be forced to let Syrian refugees on its soil leave for Europe if Western nations did not provide greater support to Turkey and support its plans for a safe zone where Syrians could be settled.
“If you can’t accept this business, we will open the gates. Let them go from there wherever they want,” he said.
Establishing the zone 32 km inside northeast Syria would allow refugees in Turkey “to return to their lands, and allow for all their needs - from education, health, shelter - to be met. It will allow them to live on their own lands and break away from the tent life and container cities,” he said.
Erdogan will host the presidents of Russia and Iran on Monday for talks that would focus on securing a lasting truce in Idlib, preventing a fresh refugee wave into Turkey, and asserting control over jihadist fighters there, he said.
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