Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed confidence that Turkey would be readmitted to the US F-35 program and receive the stealth fighter jets in line with “an agreement” with US President Donald Trump.
Washington booted Turkey out of its F-35 program in 2019 and a year later imposed sanctions on Ankara over its purchase of an S-400 Russian surface-to-air missile defense system, but since Trump’s return to office, the two NATO allies appear keen to end the dispute.
“I believe that Mr. Trump will remain loyal to the agreement we made. I think the F-35s will be delivered to Turkey step-by-step during his term,” Erdogan said while returning from Azerbaijan, the Anadolu state news agency reported Saturday.
He provided no further details about the agreement but stated that the move was “part of a geo-economic revolution.”
“The F-35 issue is not only a military technology issue for us, but also a strong partnership issue in international platforms such as NATO,” he added.
The sanctions on Turkey’s defence sector have soured ties between the two allies but last weekend, Washington’s envoy to Ankara Tom Barrack said they were likely to be over “by the year’s end”.
Trump and Erdogan would instruct their top diplomats to “figure out the way and end it, and Congress will support an intelligent solution”, he told Anadolu on Sunday.
In March, Erdogan spoke with Trump about the need to finalize a deal that would allow Turkey to purchase US F-16 fighter planes and be reinstated in the development program for F-35 warplanes.
And last month, he said he saw an end in sight to the sanctions, saying Turkey had seen them eased under Trump.
Earlier, speaking to reporters on his flight home from the recently concluded NATO Summit in The Hague, Erdoğan said that his country has not given up on the F-35 fighter jet and has communicated its intention to rejoin the F-35 consortium.
“We have not given up on the F-35s. We are discussing our intention to return to the program with our counterparts,” he was quoted as saying by his office on June 26. “We discussed the issue in our meeting with Mr Trump, talks at a technical level have started. God willing, we will make progress,” he added.
Later, the US envoy to Ankara stated on June 29th that US sanctions on Turkey’s defense sector, imposed over its purchase of a Russian air defense system, are likely to be lifted by the end of the year.
Speaking to the Anadolu state news agency, Tom Barrack said that US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would instruct their top diplomats to “figure out the way and end it… My belief is that by the year-end, we have the possibility of having a solution.”
With Inputs from: Agence France-Presse
