Washington approves sale of F-16 warplanes to Turkey

WASHINGTON — Ending months of negotiations, the US government on Friday approved a $23 billion deal to sell F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s NATO membership, the State Department said. 

As required by US law, the State Department notified Congress of the agreement, as well as a separate $8.6 billion sale of 40 F-35s to Greece.

Turkey will get 40 new F-16s and upgrades to 79 of the jets in its existing fleet, the State Department said in a news release.

The United States did not green light the transaction until Turkey’s instruments of ratification of Sweden’s membership had arrived in Washington, a US official said, highlighting the highly sensitive nature of the negotiations.

All instruments of ratification must be deposited in the US capital — a city NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will visit next week, and which will host a summit in July to mark the 75th anniversary of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Turkey’s parliament ratified Sweden’s NATO membership on Tuesday after more than a year of delays that upset Western efforts to show resolve in the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan initially objected to Sweden’s NATO bid over Stockholm’s perceived acceptance of Kurdish groups that Ankara views as “terrorist” organisations.

Sweden responded by tightening its anti-terrorism legislation and taking other security steps demanded by Erdogan.

But Erdogan then turned to an unmet US pledge to deliver a batch of F-16 fighter jets that has met resistance in Congress because of Turkey’s perceived backsliding on human rights and standoffs with fellow NATO member Greece.

The powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Ben Cardin, said on Friday he would permit the F-16 sale to Turkey but that it was “not a decision I came to lightly”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken led an intense diplomatic effort to broker the deal, telling the Turkish president three times during a trip to Ankara just after the February 2023 earthquake that there would be no planes if Turkey blocked Sweden’s NATO bid, the US official said.

Athens meanwhile strongly opposed the sale due to unresolved territorial disputes with Turkey in the energy-rich Mediterranean region.

The US agreement with Turkey hinged first on Athens not obstructing the sale, and Greece was simultaneously granted more advanced F-35s.

Turkey’s aging air force would benefit from new F-16s, as it has suffered from Ankara’s expulsion from the US-led F-35 joint strike fighter program in 2019 over Erdogan’s decision to acquire an advanced Russian missile defence system.

Turkey’s green light of Swedish NATO membership leaves Hungary as the last holdout in an accession process that Sweden and Finland began in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday invited his Swedish counterpart to Budapest to discuss the bid, although hints emerged of strains between the two countries.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said he will meet with Orban, but that he would “not negotiate” with Hungary over Stockholm’s NATO bid.

In Washington, it is thought that the process will take a few more weeks, with hopes of a flag-raising ceremony during the next NATO ministerial in Brussels in April.