Turkey can’t be blamed for Ukrainian drones, Çavuşoğlu says

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Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Saturday evening that the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used by the Ukrainian military could have been made in Turkey, but Ankara cannot be blamed in this regard as they were sold to the Ukraine.

Speaking to the press after his meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Rome, Çavuşoğlu said these weapons can no longer be qualified as Turkish weapons after their sale agreement.

“It was produced in Turkey, but it belongs to Ukraine,” he said.

Çavuşoğlu added that the Turkish military found weapons in different countries, including Russia, during its fight against terrorism, but it never blamed Russia for it.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that its fears over Turkey’s decision to sell strike drones to Ukraine were coming true and that Turkish drones risked destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on the deployment by Ukrainian government forces of a Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone to strike a position in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Ukraine bought sophisticated Turkish drones to bolster its army and struck a deal with Ankara to produce the same drones at a factory near the capital Kiev.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said it deployed the drone to force pro-Russian separatists into a ceasefire on Tuesday.

He said the drone destroyed an artillery unit belonging to pro-Russian separatists using a guided bomb. He said the drone did not cross the line of contact between the two warring parties.

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