France appears ready to consider selling the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air defense system to Turkey, marking a notable shift after years of political resistance, according to five sources with knowledge of the situation. The development opens the door to more serious discussions between the two countries.
Four of those sources indicated the change came after French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni held talks during a summit on June 25, just ahead of this week’s NATO gathering in Turkey. However, negotiations are still in their earliest phases.
“Before, there was a clear lack of openness, now there is openness,” one source familiar with the discussions told reporters.
The French presidency, when presented with questions about the matter, said it could not confirm the information and pointed to what it called “significant inaccuracies” — though it did not identify what those inaccuracies were or elaborate further. France’s foreign ministry and defense ministry both declined to comment, deferring to the presidency. Turkey’s foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Sources said Paris has set aside some of the political concerns that had previously stalled progress, though some hesitations remain. Turkey, France, and Italy had launched cooperation on a potential long-range air defense program between 2017 and 2018, exploring the possibility of jointly developing and producing such a system. That effort ground to a halt as relations between Paris and Ankara deteriorated over conflicts in Syria and Libya, as well as disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean involving Greece and Cyprus.
The SAMP/T — also referred to as the Mamba — is manufactured by the Franco-Italian Eurosam consortium, which includes MBDA France, MBDA Italy, and Thales. The system is capable of tracking dozens of targets at the same time, intercepting multiple threats simultaneously, and is the only European-built system that claims the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles. It is frequently compared to the American Patriot system, though analysts remain divided on its effectiveness, noting it has not yet seen combat use.
Turkey holds NATO’s second-largest military force, but air defense is a significant vulnerability — the country lacks a fully developed missile defense network of its own and depends heavily on NATO systems and aircraft. Ankara has been pursuing the SAMP/T as part of its broader “Steel Dome” integrated air and missile defense initiative.
One source said Italian Prime Minister Meloni and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan also discussed the matter during a phone call on July 3. Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters in June that Ankara was weighing options including both the U.S. Patriot and the SAMP/T, and remained open to arrangements involving technology transfers and joint manufacturing.
A Turkish official noted the process had been frozen since 2020 due to Eastern Mediterranean tensions and European Union sanctions. “Now, it appears there is political will on all three sides — Turkey, Italy, France — for this process to advance,” the official said.
Outside of France and Italy, the SAMP/T has only been exported to Singapore. In recent years it has been transferred to Ukraine, and France deployed the system earlier this year to assist the United Arab Emirates in defending against Iranian missile attacks. Italy also sent the system to Turkey in mid-June as part of NATO defense planning.
Any potential agreement would likely involve the newer generation of the system, which is currently being introduced into French and Italian military service. Erdogan and Macron are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the NATO summit to address bilateral matters.
At NATO’s 2025 summit in The Hague, Erdogan had already pressed Macron to drop his opposition following a thaw in relations between the two leaders. Two sources cautioned that France would still need to address concerns from Greece and Cyprus — both countries with which France has signed strategic defense agreements — before any sale could move forward.
For years, Turkish officials viewed France as the primary political barrier to the program, while Italy has consistently supported sharing the SAMP/T with Turkey to deepen defense industry ties. Momentum has picked up over the past year as Ankara has stepped up efforts to bolster its missile defenses amid growing regional instability, and as NATO allies have taken a fresh look at defense cooperation needs.
Sources emphasized that France’s new openness should not be read as a green light for a sale. “This is just the beginning. It will be a long journey if France agrees to sell it,” said Murat Aslan, a defense and security researcher at Turkey’s SETA foundation.
