WANT CHINA TIMES - 2015-02-24
Turkey will go ahead with a deal to purchase a US$3.4 billion air
defense system from China, the Turkish defense minister has said,
according to a report in China's Global Times.
Turkish defense minister Ismet Yilmaz said the system will be
integrated with Turkey's national defense system but not with NATO's
systems.
The decision may not be final, as a spokesperson for Turkey's
undersecretariat for defense industries has said that negotiations with
all bidders for the contract were still underway, Reuters reports.
The system, called the Turkey Long Rage Air and Missile Defense
System, would be jointly built by China Precision Machinery Import and
Export Corporation (CPMIEC) and Turkish defense companies, based on
China's HQ-9 long-range ground-to-air missile.
The bid for the system was first announced in 2009. CPMIEC's HQ-9 won
the bid over manufacturers from Russia, the US and Europe. NATO's
concerns about the HQ-9 and issues with integration forced Turkey to
cancel the bid, however.
In the second round of bidding, CPMIEC won over bids from the
French/Italian Eurosam consortium and Raytheon's Patriot missile system.
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