US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday held a meeting “on the sidelines” of the NATO summit in London.
The director of the public relations department of the office of the President of Turkey, Fahrettin Altun, told Anadol that a “very productive” conversation had taken place between the leaders.
According to the agency, a half-hour meeting of leaders was held at The Grove Hotel in London in a format closed to the press.
On the eve of Trump said that Turkey is an important ally of the United States, in particular, in the fight against IS (terrorist group, banned in the Russian Federation).
“I like Turkey, I have good relations with the president and … let’s see what happens in the future”, – Trump said at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on the sidelines of the Alliance’s summit in London on Tuesday.
Earlier, trump, following talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expressed hope for a solution to the problem associated with the purchase of Ankara S-400. Trump stressed that Turkey’s purchase of modern Russian weapons, such as the S-400, “is a problem” for the United States. At the same time, he called Ankara an important US ally and a key member of NATO.
The United States believes that Russia can use the S-400 to obtain information on the fifth-generation F-35 fighter-bombers. As a result, the United States excluded Turkey from the program for creating the F-35 after Ankara bought the Russian S-400.
Turkish leadership ruled out the abandonment of Russian S-400 systems. Ankara intends to complete the deployment of S-400 by April 2020.