US Air Force commander traveled to Ankara last week to try, without luck, to get the Turks to drop plan to buy Russian air defenses

Tue, Jul 18, 2017

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis sounds rather bitter these days. He can't quite wrap his mind around Turkey insisting it is inches away from spending $2.5 billion on Russian air defense tech.

“The problem is, is how do you interoperate with NATO systems with Russians — they’ll never interoperate,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday after stopping in the Pentagon press room to speak with reporters before a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss options in Syria.

“So we’ll have to see, does it go through? Do they actually employ it? Do they only employ it in one area? But we’ll have to take a look at it; Obviously, it’s not going to be interoperable,” Mattis said.

Mattis reiterated the U.S. had no formal say in how Turkey chose, or will proceed with the SAM system.

“This is a sovereign decision,” he said.

Source:
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/mattis-cranky-after-us-envoy-fails-dissuade-turkey-s-400-purchase/ri20414

---

IZAKOVIC