Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and French President Emmanuel Macron are negotiating a major air defense deal that could clear the way for Turkey to buy and co-produce the French-Italian SAMP/T Mamba missile defense system, Intelligence Online reported Monday.
The Paris-based intelligence and defense publication said the possible agreement is expected to be on the agenda ahead of the NATO summit scheduled for July in Ankara.
The report said plans to co-produce the SAMP/T surface-to-air system in Turkey are “taking shape” after years of delays in Turkish efforts to secure a European air and missile defense system.
The SAMP/T, produced by Eurosam, a Franco-Italian joint venture whose shareholders are MBDA France, MBDA Italy and Thales, is designed to protect military forces and strategic sites from aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
The system has long been discussed as a possible European alternative for Turkey after Ankara’s 2017 purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system triggered a crisis with the United States and other NATO allies.
Washington removed Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program over the S-400 purchase, saying the Russian system could compromise NATO defense technology. Turkey has argued that it turned to Russia after failing to secure comparable systems from its allies under acceptable terms.
Turkey, France and Italy signed a letter of intent in 2017 to strengthen cooperation on air and missile defense, including work linked to the SAMP/T system. The project later stalled amid political tensions between Ankara and Paris over Syria, Libya, the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey’s ties with Russia.
The new report comes as Turkey seeks to build a layered national air defense network known as “Steel Dome,” combining domestic systems with possible foreign platforms.
Bloomberg reported in April that Turkey was in talks with Italy to buy and co-produce the SAMP/T system, citing people familiar with the matter. Intelligence Online’s latest report suggests France’s role in the project has returned to the center of negotiations.
The talks come despite recent French moves that signaled continued support for Turkey’s regional rivals, including the renewal of France’s defense pact with Greece in April and Macron’s public backing for Armenia’s pro-European government in May. But the possible SAMP/T negotiations, along with a new partnership between Turkish drone maker Baykar and France’s Safran, point to a parallel track in which Paris is weighing Turkey’s role in European security, drone warfare, air defense production, energy routes and NATO planning at a time of weapons shortages, Russia’s war in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East and uncertainty over the future of US security commitments to Europe.