Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not ruled out that Ankara may start cooperating with Moscow in a number of areas, including shipbuilding and construction of jet engines for fighter jets, the Turkish leader told reporters on board his plane on his way back from talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Sochi.
"First of all, the S-400 process continues, we are not going to back down. In this useful meeting, of course, we talked at length about them and discussed how to take this to a higher level. We had an opportunity to discuss what steps we're going to take in building aircraft engines, what steps we're going to take in terms of combat aircraft. If it is Allah's will, we will take a similar step with regard to aircraft engines. Another issue is that we can take many steps together in shipbuilding, until we get to submarines. I hope we will have joint steps with Russia here as well. We will continue to work, we do not intend to stop," Anadolu news agency quoted him as saying.
Russia is ready for negotiations
In March this year, Valeria Reshetnikova, the press secretary of the Russian Federal service for military-technical cooperation (FSMTC) stated that Russia is ready to negotiate with Turkey for the possible supply of Su-35 and Su-57 fighters in case Ankara will request them.
Discussions about Turkey's possible purchase of Russian fighter jets intensified after president Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Moscow in August 2019. During his visit to the MAKS-2019 air show with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, he showed interest in the combat aircraft of the Sukhoi design bureau. Afterwards, Erdogan said he did not rule out buying the Su-35 and Su-57 instead of the US F-35, from whose program Ankara was excluded after the S-400 deal with Russia.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS