Note of the Month – May 2019

S-400 Crisis

As the timeline of delivery approaches, the tension between US and Turkey increases day by day. In May several US institutions declared their concerns about that matter. US government and military has made several threats including the non delivery of the F-35 fighter jets, interrupting the training of Turkish pilots, a possible suspension of Turkey’s NATO membership and economic sanctions.

The determined position of US about the matter put Turkish Government into trouble as Turkey has already paid for S-400s and the delivery should begin during July. As an independent state Turkey should be buying arms from the country it wishes. However, US’ main concern is the conflict of software of the S-400 missiles with weapons of NATO. They claim that they will cause fatal problems in case they used in the same army. That can be a reality or an excuse to make Turkey cancel its order.

Turkey has some alternatives regarding the issue, first it can cancel the order but that will be very difficult to explain to the Turkish citizens. Second Turkey may suspend the delivery of the missiles and gain more time to make a final decision. Third, the delivery will be made by Russia but Turkey will give its word to US that it will not use these missiles and take them to a storage facility. Fourth, Turkey shall find a way to sell these missiles to a third country but in that case Russia and US most probably will object to that.

Turkey is in a difficult situation about S-400 missiles and it seems there isn’t any feasible solution to satisfy all those three countries.

Resignation of Theresa May

In the last week of May, UK Prime Minister Theresa May declared in tears her resignation from the office. She may be a successful politician but no matter how hard she tried she could not find a solution to the Brexit. As UK’s main problem for the last couple of years is the Brexit process her work could be considered as a failure as the faith of the Brexit is still unknown and very complicated.

Re-election of the Mayor of Istanbul

After several objections and recounting the votes High Election Board of Turkey decided a re-election for Istanbul. The elections will be on 23rd of June and voters shall only vote for the Mayor of Istanbul city.