ANKARA, Mar 25 Representative of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Ibrahim Kalin said the US risks making a mistake if it tries to link Finland and Sweden's NATO membership to the F-16 deal with Ankara.
The US administration believes that Turkey should receive an upgraded version of the US F-16 fighters, as it is important for the defense capability of NATO as a whole, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said earlier. Earlier, in an interview with the Turkish NTV channel, he also admitted that the United States cannot sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey without congressional approval, it is necessary to eliminate the concerns of legislators. A member of the Council for Security and Foreign Policy under the President of Turkey, Chagry Erhan, said that Ankara may refuse to purchase F-16s and consider replacement options, including Russian fighters.
“To be frank, in the meetings I had in the US Senate, I told them if you try to link the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO with the F-16 deal, make a mistake. Because these are different topics that are independent of each other. If you try to use this (Finnish and Swedish NATO membership) as an instrument of pressure on Turkey, what happens if we make a counter-statement: we will not ratify Sweden's NATO membership until the F-16 deal is closed «A dead end, they (the American side) didn't have an answer,» Kalin said in an interview with the Turkish NTV channel.
The United States previously sent an official notice to Turkey about its exclusion from the program for the supply of the latest F-35 fighter jets due to Ankara's purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems. The states canceled the joint memorandum on the F-35 with Turkey, signing it with the seven remaining partners in the F-35 project — the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Canada and Norway. Erdogan subsequently announced the US proposal to buy other fighters, but not the fifth, but the fourth generation — the F-16. This issue will also have to be agreed upon in the US Congress — the State Department is lobbying this issue, convincing congressmen that the deal «serves the interests of Washington.»