Against the advice of the White House, the US Senate has suspended the delivery of new F-16V fighters to Turkey, even if it means threatening Swedish membership in NATO.
The announcement of an agreement between Turkey and Sweden regarding the latter's accession to NATO, on the sidelines of the Vilnius summit, was received very positively by all Western chancelleries. However, attentive observers of this file knew that many obstacles could still emerge before Stockholm could join the Atlantic Alliance.
The ambient enthusiasm was quickly dampened by the announcement, barely a few hours after the previous one, by President RT Erdogan, according to which the application for membership would not be transmitted to the Turkish parliament until the parliamentary resumption, i.e. in October.
This schedule gives the country's authorities plenty of time to negotiate the compensation expected for this change in posture, whether vis-à-vis the United States or the Europeans, and above all to reconsider the commitment made if the requirements of Ankara were not satisfied.
Indeed, although having specified that the two subjects were in no way linked, the Biden administration had announced, for its part, that it would support the sale of 40 F-16V fighter planes as well as 80 kits allowing the evolution of as many aircraft to this standard, to the Turkish Air Force, for an estimated amount of around $20 billion, ammunition and spare parts included.
The fact is, across the Atlantic, it is the Congress, and more particularly the Senate, which has the last word with regard to authorizations for the export of military equipment, and not the executive as in France. And several members of the American Senate have shown themselves, in the past, to be more than circumspects as to the interest for Washington to deliver these devices to Ankara.
Since Turkey's eviction from the F-35 program, and the cancellation of the order for 100 aircraft placed by the country's authorities, the Turkish air force has struggled to modernize, especially since due to the actions of the armies in Syria, but also in the Aegean Sea, Libya and the Caucasus, other more extensive sanctions have been put in place by the Senate in recent years.
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[…] Opposed to RT Erdogan's proposed negotiation for Sweden's NATO membership, the US Senate has suspended the sale of F-16Vs to Turkey – F-16V […]