Turkey has achieved its goal: in exchange for unlocking the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, it will get the United States to sell it more F-16 fighter-bombers, capable of carrying atomic bombs (a type of weaponry that Ankara lacks). . Washington, in return, will ask Turkey to limit or suspend its military operations in its neighboring countries, especially in Syria, where it occupies a strip of land to the north to fight the Kurdish minority, a part of which helps the United States in the fight against the Islamic State in that nation.
This was stated by the US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, just a few hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lifted the veto on Sweden’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance. In statements in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, where the NATO summit opens today, Sullivan explained that the White House will direct a request to the Pentagon to authorize the sale of these fighter-bombers to Turkey and the modernization of the other 243 with which Ankara account. Sullivan has not gone into details about whether the US will deliver the 40 F-16s that Turkey has been asking for for years or less, nor the model of the aircraft.
In recent weeks, Ankara has stepped up its creeping alignment with kyiv in the war, which may have helped the sale. Turkey has handed over to Ukraine the leaders of the defense of the Azovstal steelworks, in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, who resisted the Russian siege for months, thus enraging Moscow. In addition, it has opened a factory in Ukraine to produce Bayraktar drones, whose manufacturing company, Baykar, was founded and is run by Erdonagn’s son-in-law. The Bayraktar were instrumental in the early months of the war, though their effectiveness has been greatly diminished by Russia’s adoption of electronic warfare measures against them.
Turkey and Ukraine have also reached an agreement for the former to supply the latter with heavy artillery manufactured under license from South Korea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described both decisions as “destructive”. But the criticism does not seem to have hit Erdogan, as Turkey has stated that if Russia withdraws from the agreement for the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, its Navy will be in charge of guaranteeing the safety of the merchantmen participating in the program. .
It seems highly unlikely that the US Congress will oppose the sale. First of all, although the F-16 is an extraordinarily capable aircraft, which has made history in the world of aviation, it is relatively old, since it is a fourth generation aircraft and currently the most advanced aircraft – the US F-22 and F-35 and Chinese J-20 – these are fifth generation (Russia has a fifth generation aircraft, the Su-57, but it doesn’t appear to have more than a few prototypes to show off in the photo) .
But the main factor is Sweden’s entry into NATO. That seems to have been the main reason -at least, in the eyes of public opinion- why Democratic Senator of Cuban origin Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate International Relations Committee, which is the first obstacle that the sale must overcome for get ahead, he has lowered his opposition to the operation. Menendez insists that Turkey must “abandon the aggression of its neighboring countries”, which is interpreted more as a criticism of its presence in Syria than its support for Azerbaijan in its fight against pro-Russian Armenia. However, the senator has already indicated that Anakara “seems to have suspended” these military actions “in recent months”, in what is interpreted as a calming gesture towards Washington.
The US, however, will not provide Turkey with fifth-generation F-35 fighter-bombers, as that country possesses Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles which, by linking their systems to those of US aircraft, could steal technology from the latter and transfer it to Moscow. Biden also maintains sales of 30 F-35s to Greece, Turkey’s traditional enemy, despite the fact that both countries are paradoxically members of NATO.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
