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The State Department said that Turkey must get rid of the S-400 systems that it obtained from Russia this year in order to "move forward" in its relations with the US, which has threatened to impose additional sanctions on the country otherwise.

Turkish Minister of Defence Hulusi Akar stated on 21 November that his country is going to activate and make use of the air defence systems that it bought under a contract with Russia inked in 2017.

"The S-400 will be functioning. At the moment, Turkish military personnel are undergoing training on the use of the S-400s. After this is concluded, the planned [use of the S-400s] will start. Do not doubt it", he said.

At the same time, Akar said that Turkey is currently working on making the use of both the S-400s and US-made F-35 jets possible. The minister stressed that the country is not going to sacrifice one weapon in order to make use of another, referring to the US unwillingness to ship its fifth generation jets to Ankara unless it ditches the S-400s.

"Can the F-35 and the S-400 work together? What are the negative effects on each other? Can they be prevented? How can we use it without any harm? We have started working on it. Even if they won't be able to work together, we will find a formula [to resolve the issue]", he said.

© Sputnik / Vitaliy Ankov

US-Turkish Working Group

This year, Washington suspended shipments of F-35s ordered and paid for by Turkey, claiming that the Russian S-400s the country obtained earlier could harm the jet by revealing its weaknesses to Moscow. Ankara has repeatedly dismissed these concerns, arguing that Russia won't have access to air defence systems deployed in Turkey.

In addition to this, the US has threatened to impose sanctions against Turkey if it doesn't get rid of the S-400 systems, something that Ankara has repeatedly ruled out doing.

Following negotiations between Trump and Erdogan in November, the two countries established a group, including members of their national security teams, to address the bilateral issue that has recently been spoiling relations between Turkey and the US.

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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, (R-SC) confirmed in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News that he is sending a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requesting the transcripts of three phone calls the senator said then-Vice President Joe Biden had with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

"I want to know are there any transcripts or readouts of the phone calls between the vice president and the president of Ukraine in February [2016] after the raid on the gas company president's house," said Graham.

"After this raid, Hunter Biden kicks in. Hunter Biden's business partner meets with [then-Secretary of State] John Kerry, and Vice President Biden on three occasions makes a phone call to the president of Ukraine and goes over there in March and they fire the guy, and this is the same man that the ambassador wanted investigated in 2015."

Graham added he found it "odd" that instead of lauding the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, for investigating the Burisma chairman, he was instead relieved of his duties.

He said that in 2015, President Obama's ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, said in a speech he wanted Shokin to be more forceful in his investigation of domestic corruption.

"The one person he named as being a sleazebag was the president of Burisma," Graham remarked.