Joy Russell

In early June, Washington issued an ultimatum to Turkey urging the country to reconsider its decision to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system. The Turkish Ministry of Defense acknowledged the ultimatum on June 8, two days after it was reported in the media (Kurt 2019). At that time, Turkey was informed that if the deal to purchase the S-400 from Russia continued, all Turkish personnel training with the American F-35 fighter planes would be required to cease training and leave American soil by July 31 (Marcus 2019). By June 6, Washington had already announced that it would stop accepting new Turkish pilots into the program for training on the F-35 (Stewart 2019).