Tue 11 June 2019:
Washington cancels training of NATO ally’s F-35 pilots over Ankara’s planned purchase of Russian S-400 missiles.
The United States has stopped the training of Turkish pilots on F-35 fighters at an airbase in Arizona, US officials said, as Washington winds down Ankara’s involvement in the programme over Turkey’s plans to buy a Russian air defence system. The move at Luke Air Force Base comes faster than expected, days after acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told his Turkish counterpart that their pilots who were already in the country could remain there until the end of July.
The US gave Ankara a July deadline to make its decision over Russian S-400 missile system. That would have allowed time for more training and for Turkey to rethink its plans. Washington says Turkey’s acquisition of Russia’s S-400 air defence system poses a threat to the Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 stealthy fighters, which Ankara also plans to buy. Washington says Turkey cannot have both. “The department is aware that the Turkish pilots at Luke AFB are not flying,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mike Andrews, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Reuters news agency.
Strained ties
Strains in US-Turkish ties already extend beyond the F-35 to include conflicting strategy in Syria, sanctions on Iran and the detention of US consular staff in Turkey.Reuters on Thursday reported a US decision to stop accepting more Turkish pilots from entering the country for training, in what had been one of the most concrete signs that the dispute over the F-35 fighters was reaching a breaking point. Turkey seemed to be moving ahead with the S-400 purchase, regardless of the US warnings. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday it was “out of the question” for Turkey to back away from its deal with Moscow.
Erdogan said the US had not “given us an offer as good as the S-400s”. Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on May 22 that Turkish military personnel were receiving training in Russia on how to use the S-400 and that Russian personnel might go to Turkey. The head of Russia‘s state-owned conglomerate Rostec said last week that Moscow would begin delivering the S-400 air defence systems to Turkey. “Everything is on track with the Turks. I hope that we will begin to deliver in about two months,” Sergey Chemezov told Turkish media on Friday. “The credit money has been spent, the technology was produced. And we completed training of all the military personnel,” he said.
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