ISTANBUL, Sept 27: NATO member Turkey has chosen a Chinese defence firm that has been sanctioned by Washington to co-produce a 4 billion dollars long-range air and missile defence system, rejecting rival bids from Russian, US and European firms.
The Turkish defence minister announced the decision to award the contract to China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC) in a statement yesterday.
In February, the United States announced sanctions on CPMIEC for violations of the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act.
It did not say precisely what CPMIEC had done, but Washington has penalised the company before. In 2003, Washington said it was extending sanctions on the firm for arms sales to Iran. It was unclear when those measures were first imposed.
Officials at state-run CPMIEC, the marketing arm of China’s missile manufacturing industry, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Turkey, which has the second-largest deployable military force in the NATO alliance, has no long-range missile defence system of its own, but NATO has deployed the US built Patriot air and missile defence system there since 2012.
The winning Chinese FD-2000 system beat the Patriot, the Russian S-400 and the French-Italian Eurosam Samp-T.
Raytheon Co, which builds the Patriot missile system, said it had been informed about the Turkish decision and hoped to get a briefing soon. It said there were 200 Patriot units deployed in 12 countries, including Turkey.
“NATO has long supported the system, deploying Patriots in five aligned countries and, in 2012, providing a requested Patriot deployment to Turkey. Given this strong performance, we hope to have an opportunity to debrief and learn more about this decision,” Raytheon spokesman Mike Doble said. —
(AGENCIES)
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