US to go ahead with transfer of F-16 jets to Türkiye

VILNIUS, July 11 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration will go ahead with the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey in consultation with Congress, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday, a day after Ankara gave the green light for Sweden to join NATO.

Türkiye, which had been the main stumbling block in the the way of sweden towards the alliance, had requested in October 2021 to buy $20 billion from Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-16 fighters and nearly 80 retrofit kits for its existing fighter jets.

speaking in front of a NATO leaders’ summit in Lithuania, Sullivan said that Biden “had made it clear that he supports the transfer.”

“He hasn’t qualified this… He intends to go ahead with that transfer,” Sullivan told reporters, without elaborating on the timing.

US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a Democrat who blocked the sale of the F-16, said on Monday that he was in talks with the Biden administration about his retention and that he could make a decision “within the next week.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and members of Congress, including Menendez, in recent weeks. “And as the national security adviser said today, we will go ahead with that sale, which we understand must be approved by key members of Congress,” he told a daily news briefing.

Blinken pressed Fidan on Sweden’s NATO membership during calls on Wednesday and Saturday, according to State Department readings. He spoke to Fidan again on Monday, hours before Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan announced that he had agreed to approve Sweden’s accession.

“I’m not going to characterize those conversations other than to say that we have always made it clear that we have supported the sale of F-16s to Turkey and will continue to do so,” Miller said.

However, tensions between Turkey and Greece, another NATO member, which wants to buy F-35 jets from the United States, could be an obstacle to the sale of the F-16. Blinken also spoke with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday.

Menendez had said he had worries on Turkey that extended beyond Sweden’s NATO membership, including human rights and Turkish overflights of Greek airspace.

‘THE SWEDISH BLACKMAIL’

Some diplomats and analysts believe Erdogan had been using Sweden’s NATO membership to pressure Washington over warplanes, and that Biden cut a deal.

“There seems to have been a big push from the Biden administration to allow Turkey to modernize its air force and acquire new F-16s,” said Camille Grand, a defense specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

“This momentum together with the Swedish efforts on the PKK front could have played an important role in convincing Erdogan to move forward in Sweden.”

A former French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, wrote on Twitter that “Swedish blackmail paid.”

Ankara accused Sweden of doing too little against people whom Turkey considers terrorists, mainly members of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the United States.

A statement issued by Turkey and Sweden on Monday said Sweden had reiterated that it would not provide support to Kurdish groups and would actively support efforts to revitalize Turkey’s accession process to the EU.

Russian officials said Sweden’s expected entry into NATO would have “negative implications” for Russia’s security and Moscow would have to respond.

The timing of the transfer of the F-16 and Sweden’s entry into NATO remains unclear.

Turkey’s parliament will not meet until after the summer, and Hungary also needs to ratify the accession treaty, though Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a statement on Tuesday that it was “just a technical matter.”

All NATO states must ratify a new member.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Erdogan had agreed to push ratification through parliament “as soon as possible” but could not give a specific deadline.

Turkey’s parliament took two weeks to ratify Finland’s membership. Finland had submitted an application along with Sweden after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 overturned the security considerations of the two Nordic nations.

Reporting by Steve Holland, Justyna Pawlak, Simon Lewis, Richard Cowan, and Patricia Zengerle; edited by John Irish, Heather Timmons, Devika Syamnath and Rosalba O’Brien

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