Defense Minister: Turkey at the Center of NATO

Photo: AA

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Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar yesterday (December 15) attended the 19th Doha Forum held in Qatar.

In a session, Akar answered the questions of Wolfgang Ischinger, the head of Munich Security Conference, on Turkey's position on NATO and purchase of the S-400 missile system from Russia.

"We are still at the center of NATO," he said. "We are not going anywhere."

Akar said the country since 1952 has actively participated in the alliance's activities, including military exercises and operations.

"We are always in contact with the other NATO members"

"We are always in contact with the other NATO members," he said and added the Turkish government's decision to obtain an advanced Russian defense system was because some "allies" -- including the US and France -- did not give a satisfactory response to Ankara's defense concerns.

Referring to US President Donald Trump's remarks regarding Turkey and S-400s amid the G20 summit held in Osaka city of Japan, Akar said even Trump himself acknowledged that "Turkey was left with no other option than buying the Russian system due to failure of Barack Obama administration back then."

Asked about F-35 fighter jets, which has become a topic of dispute between Ankara and Washington, the defense chief said Turkey would continue working "patiently" to resolve this issue.

"We still hope to find a solution because we are not a client of F-35 issue, we are a partner. We paid almost 1.5 billion dollars for this partnership, and we are expecting the US side and other members of the membership to act as we did," he said.

"We will search for other ways to meet our needs"

"Otherwise," he warned, "as it happened with S-400, we will search for some other ways to find a solution to [meet] our needs."

On the political solution to the Syrian civil war, Akar said he was "hopeful" about this matter.

He pointed out that "the terror threat emanating from Syria could pose a risk to both NATO and the EU, however, Turkey was abandoned in resolving the Syrian crisis."

"Defense pacts were not alternative to ties with NATO and EU"

The defense minister went on to say that Turkey, in addition to its defense-related ties with the EU and NATO members, also evaluated ideas on if it could have defense alliances with countries in the Asia-Africa region.

However, he said these defense pacts were not an alternative to Turkey's ties with NATO or the EU.

Notably, in response to a question on nuclear weapons, Akar said the international media bodies and academics should pressure related organizations to slow down and control nuclear armament. (HA/VK)