The United States (US) of America has blocked the supply of 30 Turkish-made ATAK helicopters to Pakistan, as per the statement by Ibrahim Kalin, Press Secretary to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
“The move is made to create pressure to stop Turkey from buying the Russian S-400 missile system, but the tender is likely to go to China,” he added.
He further said that “The United States has blocked our planned sale of combat helicopters to Pakistan. This will likely lead to the fact that the tender in question will go to China, and the losers will be the United States.”
Kalin revealed that Turkey had bought the Russian S-400 because America had refused to supply Patriot air defense systems to Ankara on favorable terms.
The value of this contract is nearly $1.5 billion, and this contract was the largest one-time supply defence deal in history. Pakistan and Turkey had signed a deal for the supply of 30 ATAK helicopters in 2018.
However, the move to block the supply of American weapons to Turkey has delayed the implementation of the contract as ATAK helicopters use 800-4A engines manufactured by the American company LHTEC.
As a counter move, Turkey has announced that it will develop its helicopter engines, and has decided to continue the S-400 purchase from Russia.
