A
Russian military cargo plane carrying part of the S-400 missile system
at the Murted airfield in Ankara on Friday, in a picture provided by the
Turkish Defense Ministry.CreditTurkish Defense Ministry, via Shutterstock

ISTANBUL
— Defying strenuous American objections and the threat of sanctions,
Turkey began receiving the first shipment of a sophisticated Russian
surface-to-air missile system on Friday, a step certain to test the
country’s uneasy place in the NATO alliance.
The
system, called the S-400, includes advanced radar to detect aircraft
and other targets, and the United States has been unyielding in its
opposition to Turkey’s acquisition of the equipment, which is deeply
troubling to Washington on several levels.
It
puts Russian technology inside the territory of a key NATO ally — one
from which strikes into Syria have been staged. The Russian engineers
who will be required to set up the system, American officials fear, will
have an opportunity to learn much about the American-made fighter jets
that are also part of Turkey’s arsenal.
That
is one reason the Trump administration has already moved to block the
delivery of the F-35 stealth fighter jet, one of the United States’ most
advanced aircraft, to Turkey, and has suspended the training of its
pilots, who were learning how to fly it. (Whether NATO, in turn, might
glean some Russian secrets from Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 is
unclear.)
But
the problem runs far deeper. A breach with Turkey over the S-400 casts
into question the future of the Incirlik air base, a critical post for
American forces in the region. And while American officials never
discuss it in public, the base is also the storage site for scores of
American tactical nuclear weapons, a leftover of the Cold War.
To
the minds of Pentagon strategists, the S-400 deal is part of President
Vladimir V. Putin’s plan to divide NATO. American officials are clearly
uneasy when asked about the future of the alliance, or even how Turkey
could remain an active member of NATO while using Russian-made air
defenses.
“The political ramifications
of this are very serious, because the delivery will confirm to many the
idea that Turkey is drifting off into a non-Western alternative,” said
Ian Lesser, director of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. “This will
create a lot of anxiety and bad feelings inside NATO — it will clearly
further poison sentiment for Turkey inside the alliance.”
Strategically
positioned at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and sharing a border
on the Black Sea with Russia, Turkey has long been both a vital peg in
NATO and one of its more prickly members.
With
one foot in the conflicts of the Middle East and a toehold in Europe,
its interests have not always easily aligned with an alliance originally
forged as a Western European defense against the Soviets. Instead,
under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has
increasingly played both sides in the East-West struggle.
NATO
has stationed the American-made Patriot surface-to-air missile system
on Turkish soil since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, but Mr.
Erdogan has insisted his country needs its own long-range system.
President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, center left, with President Trump at
the Group of 20 summit meeting in Japan last month. The delivery of the
S-400 is likely to worsen strained Turkish-American relations.CreditErin Schaff/The New York Times

Turkey
tried for years to buy its own Patriot system, but talks with
Washington never produced a deal — a result that President Trump, at the
Group of 20 meeting last month, said was the fault of the Obama
administration.
“It’s a mess,” Mr. Trump said. “And honestly, it’s not really Erdogan’s fault.”
Even
as he announced the arrival of three planes bearing the first parts of
the Russian system, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkey still hoped
to buy its American counterpart. “We are looking for Patriot
procurement and our institutions are working intensively in that
regard,” he said in remarks shown on the state-owned TRT channel.
Turkey
does need to fill a gap in its defenses, but in purchasing the S-400,
“the political-military outcomes could turn into a weakness for Turkey’s
security,” said Ahmet Han, professor of international relations at
Altinbas University in Istanbul. “The delivery has already caused a
creeping vulnerability because it has damaged Turkey’s relations with
NATO.”
The presence of the Russian
system — which includes truck-mounted radars, command posts and missiles
and launchers — would introduce an extra consideration into every NATO
operation, he said, and that added strain “is the exact thing that
Russia is after.”
Turkey’s turn to
Russia for its own system is a success for Mr. Putin, who has sought to
draw Turkey closer since a dramatic falling-out over the Syrian war, in
which the Kremlin has backed the Assad government, while Turkey has
supported a rebel faction.
Turkey shot down a Russian jet on its southern border with Syria in 2015, and the following year, a Turkish policeman who shouted “don’t forget Syria” fatally shot and killed the Russian ambassador at an art gallery in Ankara.
The
two countries still back opposing sides in Syria, but have avoided
further direct clashes and have come to collaborate closely through
peace talks led by Russia, Turkey and Iran.
The S-400 delivery comes just ahead of celebrations on Monday in Turkey to mark the third anniversary of a failed coup attempt against Mr. Erdogan.
That upheaval marked a turn in relations with Russia, said Diba Nigar,
the Turkey director for the International Crisis Group, a research
institute based in Brussels.
Many
Turks, she said, believe “that NATO allies didn’t stand up for Turkey,
that the West turned a blind eye during the coup but that Moscow was
more supportive.”
The sale also
promises to add to Russia’s growing reach in the greater Middle
East.Moscow’s decisive intervention in the conflict in Syria has
cemented Russia’s dominance there, and the Libyan strongman Khalifa
Hifter is another beneficiary of its support.
Russia
has won friends in Tehran by supporting Iran in its standoff with the
Trump administration while also pursuing business, military and
diplomatic ties with the American-aligned Arab monarchies. And since the
military takeover in Egypt in 2013, Russia has also begun selling jets,
helicopters and missiles to Cairo, another key American ally.
S-400 surface-to-air missile systems at a military base near Kaliningrad, Russia, in March.CreditVitaly Nevar/Reuters

Mr. Erdogan has pursued the Russian missile system despite American warnings and the damage that sanctions could do to his country’s already suffering economy, including a renewed slide in the Turkish lira. His party suffered a set of stinging defeats in local elections this year, largely because of the economic recession, his worst political setback in many years.
Speaking last month, Mr. Erdogan warned
the United States not to risk a larger fissure in ties with Turkey over
the missile system, and he said he was confident that he could reach an
understanding with Mr. Trump to avoid sanctions.
“They
should think deeply, because losing a country like Turkey will not be
easy,” Mr. Erdogan said of the United States. “If we are friends, if we
are strategic partners, then we should handle this issue between each
other.”
A NATO spokesman said on
Friday, “we are concerned about the potential consequences of Turkey’s
decision to acquire the S-400 system,” in part because it is considered
technically incompatible with the weapons systems used by NATO
countries.
“Interoperability of our
armed forces is fundamental to NATO for the conduct of our operations
and missions,” said the spokesman who, in keeping with the
organization’s protocol, declined to be quoted by name. “We welcome that
Turkey is working with several Allies on developing long-range air and
missile defense systems.”
The Turkish
and Russian defense ministries both reported that the first parts of the
system arrived at the Murted airfield in Ankara on Friday. Turkish news
media reported that a team of Russian specialists had also arrived to
assemble the system.
Russian officials used the occasion to boast of the S-400’s effectiveness, and to tweak the United States.
Turkey
“came under unprecedented pressure and nevertheless prioritized
national security,” Franz Klintsevich, a Russian senator, told the
Interfax news agency. He claimed that Patriot missiles are made to be
incapable of locking onto “a target carrying the U.S. flag,” adding,
“everyone knows that.”
“Russian S-400 systems guarantee preservation of their sovereignty,” he said of Turkey. “No wonder the Americans are irate.”
Turkey
would be liable for sanctions under the 2017 Countering America’s
Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which mandates United States
sanctions against anyone making a significant deal with the Russian
defense industry. American officials have said that Turkey would incur
sanctions as soon as it received the weapon system on its soil.
The
law calls on Mr. Trump to select five sanctions from a list of 12 to
impose against Turkey. There is no waiver or suspension that could apply
to Turkey, but there is no time schedule laid down for enforcement.
Follow Carlotta Gall on Twitter:
@carlottagall.
Reporting
was contributed by David E. Sanger from Washington, David Kirkpatrick
from London, Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Milan Schreuer from Brussels,
and Andrew Kramer from Moscow.
No comments:
Post a Comment