Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile-defense system was “just a pretext” for the U.S. to impose sanctions, designed to squelch Ankara’s efforts to lessen its dependence on the American defense industry, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
“This decision is a blatant assault on our nation’s sovereign rights,” Erdogan said in Ankara on Wednesday. “This has been imposed for the first time against us, a NATO member. What kind of an alliance is this?”
