Turkey: Russian Missiles

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I am not aware of exact discussions that the department has had on the sanctions issue. We are not imposing sanctions on Turkey but, at the start of the delivery of the S-400s, America is expected to trigger measures under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. The severity and timeline of imposing those measures is still being debated.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, does the noble Earl accept that the political implications of this matter are just as important as the military? Does he recall that Mr Putin has twin foreign policy objectives? The first is the undermining of the European Union—with which he has had some assistance from the United Kingdom. The second is the destabilisation of NATO. The difficulty is that the United States has only recently offered Turkey the Patriot system, while Turkey has bought the S-400. The fact is that Mr Putin will not be laughing up his sleeve in the Kremlin—he will be laughing out loud.

[The Earl of Courtown]

The noble Lord makes a number of points, including in relation to the Patriot weapons system, on which Turkey felt unable to continue negotiations. But the noble Lord’s points in relation to Russia are very worrying, and something about which we have great concern.