Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was planning to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the end of the week in order to discuss the outcome of the NATO summit in Brussels held this week.
Erdogan said the matter of S-400 deliveries to Ukraine is closed, since the missile systems are Turkey's property to ensure the country's security.
"The head of the Communications Department of the Turkish presidential Administration [Fahrettin Altun] has already given the necessary response with all sensitivity... For them, this answer is enough, there is no need for anything more. Because all their work is limited to is creating a mess. They wonder 'what other blow can we deal to Turkey in order to create problems for it?' We interfere in these processes immediately, and they fail to achieve results," Hürriyet newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying on Friday.
The Turkish president was referring to a Wall Street Journal op-ed penned by Fahrettin Altun, the head of the Communications Department of the Turkish presidential Administration, who reckoned that the idea of handing over the air defence systems Ankara purchased from Russia to Ukraine was "unrealistic".
"Though quite unrealistic today, this idea presents an opportunity to discuss the problems Turkey has experienced lately with the West," Altun wrote in response to a Reuters report suggesting that Washington had informally discussed with Turkey the possibility of sending Russian S-400s to Kiev.
Instead, Altun argued that the West should supply Turkey with F-35 fighter jets and Patriot missile systems without preconditions to help mend ties.
The Turkish president also made it clear that Ankara will not be joining its NATO allies in imposing sanctions against Moscow, especially when it comes to the energy needs.
"You know, I explained this a long time ago. Today, if we consider only natural gas, we get about half of the natural gas we consume from Russia," he said, also recalling the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant jointly with Russia. “We cannot leave this aside. When I say this to (French President Emmanuel) Macron, he answers: 'You are right.' So there is nothing to be done. We must be sensitive in this matter. Firstly, I cannot leave my people in the cold in winter. Secondly, I cannot completely restart our industry. We must protect them. We are a state, we have 85 million people. We fulfill all the obligations," Erdogan said.
"We are also evaluating certain UN lines in terms of sanctions, but let's not forget that we cannot put aside our relations with Russia," the Turkish leader told reporters on the plane upon his return from Brussels.
"There are discussions about carrying out transactions in rubles, that is, in their own national currency. We have already proposed this to Russia, we have said that it is possible to do this in rubles and Turkish lira. Now we are completely proven right, and they say that they can do it," Erdogan stressed.
