US agrees to sell Turkey jets after Ankara approves Sweden’s Nato bid

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The Biden administration has told US lawmakers that it intends to sell Turkey $23bn worth of F-16 fighter jets after Ankara formally cleared Sweden’s bid to join the Nato military alliance.

The US Department of State notified Congress that it planned to approve Turkey’s request to buy 40 F-16s, according to an announcement late on Friday by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The US also intends to sell Turkey kits to modernise 79 existing F-16 jets as part of the deal. 

US approval of the arms deal, which Turkey first proposed more than two years ago, is expected bring to a close a long-running saga that has dogged relations between the Nato allies.

“These new and refurbished aircraft will provide Turkey with a fleet of modernised multi-role combat aircraft to enable it to provide for the defence of its airspace, contribute to Nato missions to preserve regional security and defend Nato Allies”, DSCA said.

The US also said on Friday that it planned to approve Greece’s request to purchase almost $9bn of latest-generation F-35 fighter jets. That deal had also been caught up by the deadlock in approving Turkey’s F-16 purchases.

Washington will also give Greece excess defence equipment, according to a letter from Antony Blinken, secretary of state, to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Greek officials feel that Washington is trying to strike a balance between two Nato members with traditionally tense relations.

The White House had linked its approval of Turkey’s purchases to the country ratifying Sweden’s Nato bid, while Ankara insisted the US had to approve the arms deal as a condition for fulfilling Stockholm’s request. In addition to pushing the US to clear its F-16 purchases, Turkey also demanded numerous concessions from Stockholm related to security.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed off on Sweden’s accession to Nato on Thursday. The move leaves Hungary as the lone holdout among Nato members on approving Stockholm’s request. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said this week Hungary was committed to ratifying Sweden’s bid to join Nato, but he also invited Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to Budapest to “negotiate”.

The US and other western allies view Sweden’s accession to Nato as a vital bulwark against Russia’s aggression in Europe after its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Erdoğan has also taken steps towards improving relations with Greece, which was seen by some US lawmakers as an important step in clinching the F-16 deal. The Turkish president travelled to Athens in December for his first official visit since 2017, vowing to “resolve our current problems through constructive dialogue, good neighbourliness and collaborative efforts”.

Congress will have 15 days to review both the Turkish and Greek arms deals. Turkey’s F-16 purchases will largely be fulfilled by Lockheed Martin, while Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney will be the main contractors on the Greek F-35 deal.

Ben Cardin, chair of the powerful Senate foreign relations committee, said on Friday that his approval of Turkey’s F-16 deal had been “contingent on Turkish approval of Sweden’s Nato membership”.

But he also warned that the US remained concerned over Ankara’s lack of co-operation on “holding Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine” and over the Erdoğan government’s human rights record.

Turkey had sought to purchase latest-generation F-35 jets, but was ejected from the US-led programme in 2019 after Ankara took delivery of a Russian air defence system over American objections.

Additional reporting from Eleni Varvitsioti in Athens