Making a speech at the opening ceremony of the second section of Ankara-Niğde Highway, President Erdoğan said: “We will work twice as hard to make our defense industry fully independent. We will expedite the projects overseen by the Presidency of Defense Industries. We will increase our support for defense industry companies. We will stand more firmly by Defense Industries President İsmail Demir and his team, as we did in the past when our ministers faced sanctions.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed via videoconference the opening ceremony of the second section of Ankara-Niğde Highway.
“TURKEY, WHICH IS A NATO MEMBER, IS THE FIRST COUNTRY THE CAATSA IS IMPOSED ON”
As Turkey develops and grows stronger, as it draws closer to its goals and as it defends its future, independence and sovereign, the attacks it faces also grow bigger in scale, said President Erdoğan. “Those not able to cope with our country on a legitimate basis are working to deter our country through threats of unilateral sanctions. In the previous weeks we were talking about EU’s sanction threats and yesterday the US announced its sanctions which had already been on the agenda for a while. Let me put it clearly, the CAATSA has not been imposed on any country other than Turkey since 2017. Turkey, which is a NATO member, is the first country the CAATSA is imposed on. What kind of an alliance is this? What kind of an allyship is this? This decision constitutes a blatant attack on our country’s sovereign rights.”
Turkey’s procurement of the S-400s and the allegation that this system poses a threat to the F-35s, which lacks any technical merit, is nothing but a pretext, the President underlined with regard to the US justification for the sanctions, and said: “The underlying objective is to hamper the moves our country has recently made in defense industry and thus make us totally dependent on them. This is clearly expressed in the reports they themselves prepare as well. From the very beginning, we have offered the formation of a technical working group to address their concerns, if any, about S-400s and to settle the issue through dialogue and diplomacy. However, it is clear that their aim is not to play the ball but the man. It seems that even if there were no issue of S-400s, they would still resort to similar methods under different pretexts.”
“TURKEY IS WAY BEYOND THE POINT OF GETTING IMMOBILIZED BY SANCTIONS”
Underscoring that Turkey will work twice as hard to make its defense industry fully independent, President Erdoğan stated: “We will expedite the projects overseen by the Presidency of Defense Industries. We will increase our support for defense industry companies. We will stand more firmly by Defense Industries President İsmail Demir and his team, as we did in the past when our ministers faced sanctions.”
Reminding that Turkey came under sanctions in the aftermath of the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation as well, President Erdoğan stated: “Following today’s sanctions decision, we will speed up our steps in every area to build a globally leading defense industry. We have attached importance to defense industry throughout our governments so as to make sure our country survives times like these. We will determinedly continue our war on terror, cross-border operations and defense industry exports, as well as the designing, software development and production of all kinds of high-tech products. Turkey is way beyond the point of getting immobilized by such sanctions.”