President Erdogan calls for Turkey’s inclusion in European defence initiatives and removal of trade barriers ahead of the Ankara NATO summit.
ISTANBUL: Turkey must be included in all of Europe’s defence structures and defence trade restrictions between NATO members must be removed, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday ahead of a key NATO summit.
His remarks come as Europe seeks to revamp its defences in light of the threat from Russia and the risk of a US pullback from NATO, as the military alliance gears up for a key summit in the Turkish capital Ankara on July 7-8.
“Turkey’s indispensable contributions to European security are sometimes overlooked,” Erdogan told parliamentary delegates from all 32 NATO member states in Istanbul, saying Turkey wanted “to participate in all defence and security initiatives” on the continent.
At issue is Turkey’s access to the European Union’s 150-billion-euro ($176-billion) Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative, a scheme key to strengthening European defence capabilities.
Although Turkey is technically eligible to access the SAFE initiative, it requires approval from all 27 EU members — something Greece has threatened to block.
“We expect your support, lawmakers, for Turkey’s inclusion in the defence and security initiatives announced by the European Union,” Erdogan told them.
The Turkish leader also urged NATO to remove all barriers blocking defence industry trade between members of the alliance.
“If we want to overcome the challenges we face, we need to remove obstacles to defence industry trade while ensuring a balanced and fair burden-sharing among allies,” he said.
Turkey has the second-biggest army of the alliance after the United States and a burgeoning defence industry which has been going from strength to strength fuelled by bilateral defence deals.
But its defence industry has been hit by US sanctions imposed over Ankara’s purchase of an S-400 Russian surface-to-air missile defence system, with Washington also booting Turkey out of its F-35 programme, in a move that has soured relations between the two NATO allies.
Although Washington has expressed a desire to draw a line under the dispute, lifting the so-called CAATSA sanctions requires Congressional approval, with observers saying there was little chance it would be resolved by the time of the summit.
But US President Donald Trump has pledged to give Erdogan something that would make him “very happy” when he flies to Turkey for the NATO gathering alongside a host of other world leaders.
Analysts said it was likely to be a delivery of several dozen US-made F110 engines Turkey needs for its fifth-generation KAAN fighter jets that are under development, delivery of which has been blocked since the imposition of the CAATSA sanctions.
