Middle East

Turkey, US Diverge Over Procurement and Security

NATO allies Turkey and the United States are exhibiting increasingly divergent positions over procurement matters and their joint campaign against radical Islamist terrorism in Syria and Iraq, giving signals of conflicting security priorities.

“This is worrying,” said one NATO diplomat in Ankara. “We hope the [US-Turkish] differences should not cause any operational weakness or lack of cohesion [in the allied campaign].”

Turkey’s top procurement official said Sunday that a US restriction on the sale of some weapon systems has driven Turkey to develop its own technologies. “I don’t want to be sarcastic but I would like to thank [the US government] for any of the projects that was not approved by the US because it forced us to develop our own systems,” said Ismail Demir.