NATO or S-400 deal: is Turkey forced to choose?

U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said that the United States would like Turkey to remain a NATO member but without Russian-made S-400 air defense systems on its territory.

During a briefing ahead of the April 3-4 meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Washington, Hutchison evaded a direct answer to a question whether Turkey will be excluded from NATO if it buys Russian-made missile systems.

The U.S. diplomat noted that Turkey is a very important ally. "So we want Turkey to stay in the alliance," TASS cited her as saying.

"We want them not to have a Russian missile defense system in the middle of their country that cannot be interoperable with NATO," the envoy stressed.

"The United States is very concerned about Turkey having our F-35s in proximity to an S-400 Russian system because there could be a transfer of information, communications, or even an interruption of that," Hutchison added.