Turkey says decision on anti-missile defense system likely in early 2015

A final decision on Turkey’s contract for the the country’s first long-range air and anti-missile defense system will most likely come in early 2015, a senior defense official said in an interview with Defense News.

After Ankara selected a Chinese company in September 2013 to build the air defense architecture and came under heavy pressure from its Western allies for the decision, it also opened parallel negotiations this summer with a European contender in the multibillion dollar competition.  Contract negotiations with the Chinese manufacturer, China Precision Machinery Import Export Corp (CPMIEC), are also in progress but President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said talks have also opened with Eurosam, the European contender in the program.

Following an assessment by Turkey’s top defense procurement agency, the Defense Industry Executive Committee selected CPMIEC as the best bidder, and Eurosam as the second. A U.S. partnership of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin came third in the bidding. CPMIEC offered a solution with a price tag of $3.44 billion.