Will Recep Tayyip Erdogan get a refund on his S-400 air defense systems? Did he keep the receipts, and does Vladimir Putin offer cash or store credit?
Speaking of credit, this apparent reversal by the dictator in Turkey should put a little more of it in Donald Trump's political coffers. After some apparently tough negotiations with Ankara over their desire for modern fighter aircraft, Bloomberg reports that Erdogan will ask Russia to take back those systems and refund at least some of the money spent on them. That will not only represent a shift to the West from Erdogan, but at least a somewhat embarrassing setback for Putin:
Turkey is seeking to return S-400 air defense systems it bought from Russia nearly a decade ago, a move that would end a controversial deal that roiled its relationship with the US and other NATO members.
Such a move would also potentially allow Ankara to buy the American F-35 stealth fighters it has long sought.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue of the S-400s with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Turkmenistan last week, following similar discussions that had taken place earlier between the two countries’ officials, according to people familiar with the matter. ...
Erdogan’s move follows intensifying pressure from Washington to give up the advanced Russian technology. Turkey’s possession of the missiles and its desire to rejoin the F-35 program came up during Erdogan’s White House meeting with Donald Trump in September. The US president’s close ally Tom Barrack, who’s ambassador to Turkey, said earlier this month that Ankara was closer to giving up the S-400s, predicting the issue could be resolved in the next four to six months.
Bloomberg provides a little history to this dispute, which stretches back to the Obama administration. In 2016, the Turkish military establishment tried to remove Erdogan in what had been a tradition since Kemal Ataturk first took control of modern Turkey and made it a relentlessly secular state. The military would seize power when radicals or corruptocrats threatened the Western-leaning direction of the country. In 2016, the attempt failed, largely because Erdogan prepared for it (and may have triggered it to end that threat permanently). He blamed Barack Obama and the US for encouraging the coup, and immediately began shifting loyalties from NATO to Putin.
That's when Erdogan began integrating Russian systems into their defense structure, while at least attempting to improve matters with Trump early in the latter's first term. Erdogan's hostaging of an American pastor – as well as an avalanche of human-rights violations after the coup – soured those efforts by mid-2018. Turkey remained in NATO, but the US refused to supply its military with any current-generation platforms as long as Turkey continued to use the S-400s. Turkey has also played a less-than-helpful role in dealing with Hamas over the last decade, although they did finally appear to turn a corner when Trump demanded cooperation on the peace plan ... and staged a demonstration about the effectiveness of Russian air defense systems in Iran, along with Israel. (Iran used the previous S-300 generation of air defenses, which proved useless.)
Since then, Erdogan must have taken some key lessons from Trump's firmness and willingness to act. Word had bubbled up earlier this week that Erdogan might want a return to the fold:
In a recent post on X, U.S. Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack stated his hope that "talks will yield a breakthrough in the coming months" that meet the security requirements of both nations. However, this was met by indignation from Turkish officials who stated that “there have been no new developments regarding the S-400 air defence systems, which has been put on the agenda in recent days.”
The U.S. Ambassador’s statement indicates significant progress in restoring the relationship between the two NATO partners over the issue of the fighter jets, with the talks labelled as the "most fruitful conversations we have had on this topic in nearly a decade."
Yet, the main sticking point of the status of the S-400 Triumph in Turkish service remains with neither side appearing ready to make concessions. Turkish officials continued with their initial response by explaining that discussions remain ongoing regarding “lifting sanctions and obstacles to the F-35 procurement and re-admitting our country to the programme.”
Erdogan also had to recognize the potential threat from Israel and Saudi Arabia if Turkey left the NATO/US alliance umbrella. The US will now sell a modified F-35 to the Saudis for the first time, and is helping Israel build a rather impressive inventory of their own custom version:
The IDF announced on Sunday that three F-35i aircraft have landed at Nevatim Air Force Base, purchased from US defense giant Lockheed Martin, which increases Israel's quantity of F-35 aircraft to 42 out of 50, which are already fully purchased.
These three aircrafts actually arrived last week but were only announced on Sunday as part of a long-standing deal spaced over a period of years to raise Israel from 25 to 50 F-35s.
In 2023, Israel, the US government, and Lockheed Martin signed a deal for 25 additional F-35s to eventually raise the number of aircraft to 75, which will mean a third squadron, and additional steps in that process took place in mid-2024.
One has to wonder whether Erdogan is realizing, after the abject humiliation of Iran in the Twelve-Day War, that he bought a pig in a Muscovite poke out of spite in 2016. The question now will be how Putin will react to losing that inroad into NATO, and whether Turkey's status as an energy client will preclude Putin from doing much about it in the near term.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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