MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) - Ankara plans to use S-400 air defense missile systems it is buying from Russia only to protect its own security, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday.
"Turkey is a NATO member, but we are an independent state, we are not a satellite state. Therefore, just as other NATO countries can buy weapons not only from NATO countries, we are fully entitled and free to buy weapons and defense systems from any country we see fit," Cavusoglu said in a lecture for students of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University) on Tuesday.
Turkey urgently needs an air defense system, but NATO countries having such systems did not want to sell them to Ankara, he said.
"As for when this system is going to be used: when there is some threat, when Turkey is fired upon, this is a defensive system, this is not an offensive system," Cavusoglu said, adding that Ankara is not planning to use these systems in Operation Olive Branch in Syria's Afrin.
"The S-400s will be used only to protect the civilian population," he said.