Turkey on Thursday rejected a bill supporting sanctions against Ankara passed by the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee as a disrespect for its sovereign decisions on national security.
The initiatives conducted in both houses of the Congress through “internal political considerations and supported by known anti-Turkish circles are yet another manifestation of the disrespect shown toward our sovereign decisions concerning our national security,” said the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a statement, noting those initiatives have no other function than to harm Turkey-U.S. relations.
Recalling that Ankara had already responded to a similar draft bill passed by the House of Representatives on Oct. 29, the ministry said attempts to bring this new draft bill to the Senate floor show that Turkey’s explanations fall on deaf ears.
“We call upon the U.S. Congress to adopt a constructive approach safeguarding our common objectives to develop Turkey-U.S. relations which were confirmed at the highest level in recent weeks, and to act in a reasonable manner,” said the statement.
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The Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday voted by 18 to 4 to send the “Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act of 2019” for a vote in the full Senate in a bid to impose sanctions on Turkey after its offensive in Syria and purchase of the Russian S-400 missile systems.
The S-400 issue between Ankara and Washington is not a technical or defense matter anymore, but rather an issue of U.S. domestic politics, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Wednesday.
Turkey’s procurement of the Russian S-400 missile defense systems prompted the U.S. government to suspend Ankara’s participation in the F-35 fifth-generation joint strike fighter program in July.
