www.zerohedge.com By Tyler Durden
First it was Turkey’s acquirement of Russia’s S-400 anti-air defense missiles which soured relations with Washington, and next it will be space apparently.
Turkey’s government announced this week that it’s poised to sign a space cooperation agreement with Russia. Though no specific timeline was given, the head of Turkey’s recently established space agency said a cooperative agreement will come “in the near future”.
The president of Turkish Space Agency Serdar HĂŒseyin Yıldırım announced of the talks with Russia: “We have plans for signing an agreement in the near future.”
He described in an interview with TASS that “We are building bilateral relations with countries and with international organizations that we have identified in accordance with our national goals. We keep working on common conditions of cooperation with different countries, including Russia.”
He cited the high cost and immense infrastructure that goes behind the advanced technology required for space exploration as making it essential to seeking help from Russia’s long established program. Indeed jumpstarting an ambitious space program in the middle of a deteriorating and erratic economy sounds easier in a speech or merely on paper… as The Guardian wrote earlier this year:
Turkey founded its space agency in December 2018 after the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) made the project an election campaign promise earlier that year, but Turkeyâs extraterrestrial aspirations have had trouble getting off the ground so far because of both the projectâs complexity and Turkeyâs economic crisis.
“Our goal at the international level is to establish strong relations of partnership with regional partners and with our neighbors. As far as Russia is concerned, we have vast opportunities in many fields of cooperation. We believe that we will be able to make much faster progress if we manage to build firm relations of partnership based on mutually beneficial cooperation,” he explained.
? Another place where #Turkey & #Russia can send their mercenaries
'Turkey, Russia may sign space cooperation deal soon'https://t.co/uiuuOmK2ZP
— George Mastropavlos (@g_mastropavlos) April 5, 2021
It was only in February of this year that President ErdoÄan unveiled Turkey’s “10-year space road map”. Turkey hopes to initiate missions to the moon along with advancing a satellite program toward establishing its own network of systems.
The country’s Turkish Space Agency (TUA) is among the youngest in the world, only having been established in 2018.
