After a protracted dispute between the US and Turkey over the Turkish decision to buy S-400 air defenses from Russia, Turkey has decided that they would like to have Patriot missiles for northern Syria, with an eye toward using them against Russia and Syria.
US officials say they are willing to sell Turkey the Patriot missiles after all, but only if they promise not to put the S-400 into operation, despite Turkey already having bought and paid for that.
US officials are saying this is a “softening” of their previous position that Turkey couldn’t buy both, though as a practical matter saying Turkey has to not use what they already bought seems like an offer meant to be rejected.
Turkish officials say that the US offer requires them to also buy F-35s, a very expensive US warplane. The US had previously expelled Turkey from the F-35 joint program over the S-400, though it’s not clear Turkey even wants back into that program, with Russia suggesting they’d sell warplanes to them at a better price.
Double dipping.
Who’s on first?
As soon as the S-400 is turned on it’ll read the specifications of the Patriot missile, thus rending it is useless.
Wow, that’s some system. Will it also tune in the Royals game, read my horoscope, make my coffee, get me a date with Scarlett Johansson, etc.? Or is magically reading the specifications of a system it’s not designed to target the only strange non-mission thing it does?
U.S isn’t willing to give the Patriot system to Turkey until they get rid of the S-400 which is currently offline. Western and Eastern hardware do not coexist and placing them next to each other will result in one trying to dominate the other, just like their political leaders!
What a wonderful world.