Turkey To Face American Music For Testing Russian Defense Systems

As Turkey prepares a warm bed with the help of Russia, the roof over its head is going to blow off with US sanctions.  Despite repeated indicative dialogues and then stiff warnings, Ankara has recently gone ahead and tested the newly Russian acquired S-400 defense systems. The Turkish choice led to Washington removing it from the multinational manufacturing program for F-35 joint-strike fighter jets and banned the sale of those aircraft to Turkey as well.

Turkey didn’t solicit this brute anger and has continued to work on the S-400 systems acquired in May this year.  EU nations have also been weary of this purchase, and are certain this friendship with Russia is not good news for anyone there or in the Middle East as well.

The patience threshold has reached its peak and the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is confirmed to be looking at enforcing the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) on Turkey.  This is to be followed with banning US purchases of Turkish sovereign debt, and punishing the Turkish banking and energy sectors.

Discussions over strictly sanctioning Turkey comes from US Senate and Treasury criticizing Ankara’s selfish act of shoving-to-push tactic it has used on Syrian Kurdish forces in the North of Syria. Trump was also rebuked for withdrawing support forces, a decision that was not supported by the Senate either. In fact, Trump was urged not to invite Turkish PM Erdogan to the White House, unless he withdrew forces from Northern Syria and did not hamper the peace building efforts.  But Trump refused to adhere, showing his favor of Erdogan over Congress.

The CAATSA sanctions are known to be a harsh form of sanction against the nation. It will include a range of options—from denials of visas of Turkish officials and the prohibition of export licenses to harsher measures such as the blocking of any transactions with the US financial system.

 

Political analysts are saying that Russia is now pulling the Turkish strings and anything Erdogan is saying to Washington has to be first vetted with Putin. Turkey will not say anything until the January visit of Vladimir Putin to Turkey. Indeed, the mouthpiece is Erdogan, but the mind at work is that of Putin which has a calmer but thought out strategy at play towards becoming a super power in the near future.