Posted on 10/23/2013 5:59:41 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rebuffed intensified international criticism over Turkey’s choice to agree a missile defense deal with China, a day after NATO declared that it wanted a say in the decision-making process.
“Nobody has the right to overshadow our understanding of independence,” Erdoğan said Oct. 22 before departing for Kosovo.
Recalling NATO’s discontentment over Turkey’s decision to accept a Chinese bid to build its first long-range anti-missile system, Erdoğan noted that many NATO members have Russian weapons in their inventory.
The prime minister’s statement came a day after NATO Chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s remarks expressed the hope that NATO’S reaction would be taken into account before Turkey makes its final decision over the long-range anti-missile system.
Rasmussen stressed that NATO was completely aware that deciding which equipment to purchase is a national decision, but also stressed Turkey’s international commitments. “It’s of utmost importance that the system that a nation plans to acquire can work and operate together with similar systems in other Allied nations,” he said.
However, ignoring NATO’s stance on the issue, Erdoğan said there was no problem with the deal in terms of Turkey’s national preferences.
He also said Turkey and China had already conducted an exercise with NATO’s knowledge and that everything was proceeding by the book.
The Turkish government’s decision to start negotiations with a Chinese firm for the co-production of the $3.4 billion missile defense system has triggered serious concerns from NATO and among member countries, particularly the United States. The fact that the Chinese company, China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp’s (CPMIEC), is under U.S. sanctions also complicates the situation.
NATO pawns are supposed to use NATO crony capitalist suppliers. Get with the program.
Obama is certainly bringing the nations of the world together in agreement. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, Germany, England, Brazil, Egypt, Iran... Nobody will like or respect the Obama administration, not even France.
However, Obama will negotiate “peace” with all except our own Congress.
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