Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has blamed the United States for not being honest with Turkey over the delivery of F-35 fighter jets, which caused problems in US-Turkey relations, CNN Turkish reported on Thursday.
Erdoğan said that Turkey’s ties with the U.S are not sound.
“I can’t really say that the Turkish-American relations are healthy at the moment,” the Turkish president told journalists.
Turkey’s strongman blamed the U.S administration for not being fair to Turkey.
“We bought the F-35s and paid $1.4 billion dollars. However, these F-35s were not delivered to us. America needs to fix this once and for all. “
Erdoğan said that Turkey will not back down from its purchase of S400 from Russia.
“For us, the S-400 issue is finished. We cannot take a step back from here.”
Erdoğan blamed the U.S for being dishonest over the S400 issue.
“Turkey’s stance is honest, but unfortunately America did not act honestly and continues to do so.”
The U.S. formally ended Turkey’s role in joint production of the fifth-generation attack aircraft in 2019, following tensions over Ankara’s decision to purchase a Russian-made air defence system, S-400s.
Erdoğan, in the same interview, also added that his country would choose whatever weapon systems it would like for self-defense.
Erdoğan said: “I hope that as two NATO allies, we treat each other friendly, not with an animosity. The state of affairs do not bode well between the two NATO allies for the time being. After 19 years of being executive as prime minister and president, the point we arrive unfortunately not a great point. I had worked well with son Bush (George W. Bush), I worked well with Mr. Obama, I worked well with Mr. Trump but I can’t say that we had a good start with Mr. Biden.”
In the meantime, earlier the Turkish president criticized the U.S during a CBS interview due to be broadcast on Sunday.
“The United States should do more to help Afghan refugees,” Erdoğan said in remarks that aired on Wednesday, as he accused Washington of failing to meet its responsibilities on the matter.
“Right now, the U.S. is failing to meet its obligations. We have more than 300,000 Afghan refugees and we will no longer be able to afford to welcome any more Afghan refugees in Turkey,” Associated Press cited Erdoğan as saying.
Ahval