France softens stance on Turkey SAMP/T air defence sale

France is open to a possible sale of the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air-defence system to Turkey after ​years of political opposition, according to five sources familiar with the matter, paving the way for more substantive talks with Ankara.

Four sources said the shift ‌in position followed talks between French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a summit on June 25 ahead of this week's NATO summit in Turkey, although negotiations remain at an early stage.

"Before, there was a clear lack of openness; now there is openness," said one source familiar with the discussions.

The French presidency, when sent a number of questions for this article, said it did not confirm the information, pointing ​to "significant inaccuracies". It did not say what the inaccuracies were and declined to explain them. 

France's foreign ministry declined to comment and referred to the French presidency, as did ​the defence ministry. Turkey's foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The sources said that ⁠Paris had set aside some political reservations that had previously blocked progress, although hesitations remained.

Turkey, France and Italy launched cooperation on a possible long-range air-defence programme in 2017 to 2018, ​including studies into co-development and co-production.

However, the project stalled as ties between Paris and Ankara deteriorated over Syria, Libya and disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean involving Greece and Cyprus.

The SAMP/T, also ​known as Mamba, is produced by the Franco-Italian Eurosam consortium, bringing together MBDA France, MBDA Italy and Thales.

The system can track dozens of targets simultaneously, intercept multiple threats at once and is the only European-made system that claims to be able to intercept ballistic missiles.

-Reuters