Critical meeting for national air defense system

Turkey's Defense Industry Implementation Committee (SSIK) will convene for an extraordinary meeting today to be chaired by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and attended by Chief of General Staff General Necdet Ozel and Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz in order to finalize the tender of a long-range air defense system that has been postponed several times. The project will reportedly cost $4 billion and among the bidders for the tender are American Patriot, Russian S-400, China's FD-2000 and French-Italian partnership Eurosam Samp-T. The turbulence in the neighboring country Syria, where civil war is ongoing, has urged Turkey to establish its own air defense system in the event of a missile attack from across the border.