Biden says he and Erdoğan talked about F-16s, Sweden’s NATO bid
US President Joe Biden said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a call on Monday (29 May) repeated Ankara’s desire to buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States, while Biden told him Washington wanted Ankara to drop its objection to Sweden’s joining NATO.
The exchange took place when Biden called Erdoğan to congratulate him on his victory in Turkey’s presidential election on Sunday.
“I spoke to Erdoğan. I congratulated Erdoğan. He still wants to work on something on the F-16s. I told him we wanted a deal with Sweden, so let’s get that done. And so we’ll be back in touch with one another,” Biden told reporters before departing the White House for Delaware.
Asked if he expected any movement from Erdoğan on Sweden’s NATO membership, Biden said: “I raised that issue with him. We’re going to talk more about it next week.”
Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, ditching long-held policies of military non-alignment following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bids for membership must be approved by all NATO members. Turkey and Hungary have yet to approve Sweden’s bid.
US urges Turkey, Hungary to ratify Swedish NATO application before summer
Budapest and Ankara should ratify Stockholm’s NATO application before the Alliance’s summit in Vilnius in July, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said during an official visit to Sweden on Wednesday.
In the first visit of a US Secretary of Defence …
Turkey has sought to buy $20 billion worth of F-16s and nearly 80 modernization kits from the United States. But the sale has been stalled due to objections from the US Congress over Ankara’s refusal to green light to NATO enlargement, its human rights record and Syria policy, even though the Biden administration has repeatedly said it supports the sale.
Top US lawmaker objects to potential F-16 sale to Turkey
The Biden administration has told Congress it is preparing the potential $20 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday (13 January), sparking an immediate objection from a senior US lawmaker.
A much smaller $259 million package including avionics software upgrades for Turkey’s current fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft was cleared by US Congress earlier this year, days after Turkey ratified Finland’s NATO accession.
The Biden administration has repeatedly rejected any assertion of any “quid pro quo” between the sale and the NATO enlargement, although Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in January said the US side made it clear that an approval of NATO bids would be viewed positively by the Congress.
A bipartisan group of senators in a February letter to Biden said Turkey’s failure to ratify the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland, which was still waiting at the time, would “call into question this pending sale”, referring to the F-16s.
A source familiar with the discussions said the United States had previously told Turkey it would be hard to get Congress to approve the F-16 deal if Ankara doesn’t green light Sweden.
Turkey ratified Finland’s NATO accession in late March, but has continued to object to Sweden, saying Stockholm harbors members of militant groups it considers to be terrorists. Hungary has also not yet approved Sweden’s bid.
Seeing Sweden join NATO by mid-July when the alliance is due to hold a leaders summit in Lithuania is among the top priorities for Washington.
The Turkish Presidency in a statement on the call between Biden and Erdoğan said the two leaders agreed to deepen cooperation on all aspects of their bilateral ties, which have grown in importance in the face of regional and global challenges.
Read more with EURACTIV
