Turkey asks US to buy 40 F-16 jets
Turkey's latest moves are truly disconcerting. Less than a fortnight ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was meeting with his Russian and Iranian counterparts to reconcile positions mainly on the Syrian conflict. At the same time, he was negotiating with Vladimir Putin the purchase - for the second time - of S-400 missile defence systems, even though he knew that the United States had warned them on numerous occasions of the sanctions that such a purchase would bring. As usual, Turkey's leader has turned a blind eye to these warnings and hopes to bring negotiations with Moscow to a successful conclusion.
Despite skipping the American warnings and almost certainly facing new sanctions from Washington, Erdogan intends to negotiate with Joe Biden's government for the purchase of 40 F-16 jets. Negotiations for the F-35 jets that Turkey had hoped to receive have already collapsed, so Ankara is now seeking a solution with its NATO ally that is increasingly weakened by deals such as AUKUS. However, the Turkish request is still under consideration by the US State Department, which has not given the green light for the sale of the F-16s.
"As a matter of policy, the Department does not confirm or comment on proposed defence sales or transfers until Congress has been formally notified," a US State Department spokesman said. For its part, the Turkish embassy has avoided making statements about the jets manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp. The same company is in charge of producing the 100 F-35 jets that were never delivered to Ankara as a result of Turkey's rapprochement with Russia. This is another reason why Joe Biden's government is not at all sure that the approval of this new sale will go ahead.
It is not sitting well in Washington that one of the countries it considers a friend and ally has been forging closer ties with Moscow for so long. Moreover, in a context of NATO's weakness, ties with Turkey, while still important, are not seen as a dire necessity. The US reiterates that "any entity that does significant business with the Russian military or intelligence sectors" will be sanctioned. Moreover, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby has accused Turkey of not seeking help from other NATO countries, preferring instead to negotiate with Putin for the purchase of S-400 systems.
"Turkey has had multiple opportunities over the past decade to purchase the US Patriot defence system, and instead chose to buy the S-400, which provides Russia with revenue, access and influence," Kirby said. It is worth noting that the Turkish Defence Industry Directorate, its leader Ismail Demir and three other employees were sanctioned for the purchase of the first batch of missile defence systems, and if all goes according to plan, as Erdogan claims, they will not be the only ones. It is precisely this second purchase that could derail Erdogan's F-16 deal with the US government.
Moreover, Recep Tayyip Erdogan not only pretends to ignore US warnings, but is being blunt in his statements when asked about the purchase of Russian systems: "We are the only ones to make such decisions (...). In the future, no one will be able to interfere in terms of what kind of defence systems we buy, from which country and at what level". These words have not gone down well with the US Congress, which is calling on Biden to exert more pressure on Ankara in the face of Erdogan's latest moves.
