Media: Erdogan offered to produce S-500 missile systems together with Russia
On Thursday, during an interview with 24 TV, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he offered Russian President Vladimir Putin to jointly produce S-500 surface-to-air missiles.
Erdoğan did not reveal Putin’s response, nor did he mention when exactly the two presidents conversed.
Anadolu news agency released an extract of Erdoğan’s interview for 24 TV. “Russia provided us with a loan for S-400 on acceptable terms,” the agency cites Erdoğan as stating. “In the second and third phases, we will proceed with team production. It may also be a joint production of S-500.”
The S-500 missile systems will replace the S-400 systems and may be adopted by the Russian Armed Forces in the next 25 years. Russian Minister of Defense, Sergey Shoygu, announced that supplies S-500 missile systems to the Russian Army will start in 2020.
In February, then-Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, stated in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper that production of the vehicle-mounted S-500 and S-400 had already started at the Nizhny Novgorod Machine-Building Plant. From 2012, all industrial production of S-400 and S-500 anti-aircraft missile system components was carried out by the JSC Concern VKO Almaz-Antey.