US senator wants to hold off sanctions bill on Turkey

ANKARA

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch said he is pausing sanctions on Turkey.

"Probably, it's best we don't pass a sanctions bill at this moment," Risch told reporters Thursday in his office, referring to the negotiations between the U.S. and Turkey on procurement of Russian S-400 missile system.

Risch attended Wednesday's meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office along with some other Republican senators.

He called the meeting "very therapeutic".

A range of topics were discussed, including Ankara's acquisition of the Russian S-400, the F-35 joint strike fighter, bilateral trade and a pause in Turkey's operation in northern Syria.

"President Erdogan isn’t completely there yet, but it’s a give-and-take proposition,” he said. “He is very clearly aware of the decisions that he has to make, and the repercussions for those decisions."

Turkey's acquisition of the advanced Russian air-defense system prompted the Trump administration to remove Turkey from the F-35 fifth-generation joint strike fighter program in July.

The U.S. maintains that the system could be used by Russia to obtain classified details on the jet and is incompatible with NATO systems.

Turkey, however, maintains that the S-400 would neither be integrated into NATO systems, nor pose a threat to the alliance.