A bipartisan group of US senators said Thursday that Congress cannot approve a $20 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey until Ankara agrees to allow Sweden and Finland to join NATO.
Sweden and Finland announced they would join the alliance last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, but faced surprising opposition from Turkey and have sought its support ever since.
Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm in particular to take a hard line against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey and the European Union consider a terrorist group, and another group they blame for the 2016 coup attempt. .
The three countries reached an agreement in Madrid to move forward in June, but Ankara suspended talks last month after protests in Stockholm in which a far-right Danish politician burned a copy of the Koran.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, 29 Democratic and Republican senators said the Nordic countries were making “full and good faith efforts” to meet Turkey’s NATO membership requirements, but Ankara says Sweden must do more.
“Once Turkey completes its NATO membership protocol, Congress may consider selling F-16 fighter jets. Failure to do so will raise questions about this pending sale,” the senators wrote in the letter.
This is the first time that Congress has directly and indirectly linked the sale of F-16s to Ankara and Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
The Biden administration has repeatedly said it supports the deal and has refused to link the two issues, but has acknowledged that ratifying the two countries’ NATO membership would help Congress pass the sale.
Turkey has said it could accept Finland’s request to join the alliance ahead of Sweden, but Finland’s president and foreign minister have rejected the idea, saying each country’s security depends on the other.
Of the 30 members of the alliance, Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify the membership of the two Scandinavian countries.
In October 2021, Turkey requested the purchase of 40 F-16 fighters manufactured by Lockheed Martin and almost 80 sets of spare parts to modernize its fighters.
During a visit to Washington last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said NATO membership should not be a prerequisite for the sale and urged the Biden administration to convince Congress to drop its opposition.
Congress can block foreign arms sales, but it has never won the two-thirds majority in both chambers needed to override a presidential veto.
Source: EuroNews
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