The two leaders met in Indonesia for the G20 Summit. Turkiye’s EUROSAM SAMP/T Air and Missile Defence System Programme came to the fore during the meeting. Regarding the issue, President Erdoğan said that Italian Prime Minister Meloni noted, “some technical problems remain, but France, Italy and Turkiye will solve the SAMP-T issues shortly.”
On January 5, 2018, the “Long Range Air and Missile Defence System (LORAMIDS) Identification Study” contract was signed between the Defence Industry Agency (SSB) and ASELSAN, EUROSAM and Roketsan. The agreement aimed to jointly develop an Air Defence Missile System that meets the needs of Turkiye, France and Italy. Three sides met regularly to conduct technical negotiations and were blocked. TurDef talked with European sources close to the subject. The source claimed that France had a positive attitude toward the project; however, Italy had a negative one. When asked why Turkiye and France acted positively on this issue despite contradicting each other in many cases, the sources said, “This is a defence system”. The same sources stated that France exports Dassault Rafale planes to Greece and is ready to export such defence systems to Turkiye within this policy.
