Washington has prevented the supply of 30 Turkish-made ATAK attack helicopters to Pakistan, now they are likely to be received by China, said the press secretary of the Turkish President Ibrahim Kalyn, commenting on the consequences of US sanctions against his country over the purchase of Russian S-400s. p>
A representative of the Turkish Defense Industry Secretariat told RIA Novosti that Turkey and Pakistan in 2018 signed an agreement on the supply of 30 ATAK helicopters, this is the largest contract in the history of Turkey for a one-time supply of defense products. Its amount was estimated at $ 1.5 billion.
However, the implementation of the contract was delayed due to the refusal of the United States to provide Turkey with licenses for the export of engines due to the fact that Congress is blocking the supply of American weapons to Turkey in order to force it to abandon the S-400 purchased from Russia. Turkey is developing its own helicopter engines.
“The United States has blocked our planned sale of combat helicopters to Pakistan. This will likely lead to the fact that the tender in question will go to China, and the losers will be the United States,” Kalyn said in an interview with Bloomberg. p>