“We’re very upset,” US national security adviser Robert O’Brien said on CBS on Sunday.
“There’s no place in NATO for significant Russian military purchases,” said O’Brien (pictured below). “That’s a message that the president will deliver to him very clearly when he’s here in Washington.”
He further repeated Trump’s long held stance that “cracks … have formed” in North Atlantic Treaty Organization because not all members are “paying their fair share.”
The American and Turkish presidents are set to meet this week and hold a joint news conference.
‘NATO’s brain death’
According to the US, Turkey’s decision to purchase the Russian S-400 system could aid Russian intelligence and threaten a vital American aircraft, the F-35 fighter jet.
Trump’s unwillingness to help NATO has also made other allies complain, with French President Emmanuel Macron, saying on Thursday that the organization is suffering a “brain death.”
“You have partners together in the same part of the world, and you have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its NATO allies. None,” Macron told The Economist. “Strategically and politically, we need to recognize that we have a problem.”