Menendez retains Turkish F-16s despite Sweden’s NATO deal

Senator Bob Menendez

The US-Turkish deal, at the cost of approving Sweden’s bid to join NATO in exchange for F-16 aircraft and upgrading the existing fleet of these aircraft in the Turkish Air Force, has stalled due to the position of the chairman of the US Congress Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez.

One key senator is refusing to lift his long-term ban on the sale of 40 F-16 Block 70 fighters to Turkey, despite the Biden administration signaling its desire to move forward last week. The potential $20 billion sale also includes 80 upgrade kits. defensenews.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said last week that the sale would go ahead after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced at a NATO summit in Lithuania that Turkey would ratify Sweden’s bid to join NATO. But on Tuesday, Sen. Bob Menendez (DN.J.) told Defense News that he continues to use his position as chairman of the foreign relations committee to block the sale.

“I have always said that the ratification of Sweden’s accession to NATO, which, of course, must occur, is not a prerequisite for me to remove the restriction on the sale of F-16,” Menendez said. “There are bigger problems than just this one.”

In recent weeks, the US State Department has been negotiating with Menendez over his decision to limit the supply of F-16s. Menendez told Reuters last week that if the Biden administration “can find a way to ensure that Turkey’s aggression against its neighbors, which has been quiet for the past few months, ends, then that’s great, but there must be a permanent reality.”

In recent years, Greece has often complained about Turkish incursions into its airspace, and on Thursday Erdogan is due to attend the opening of a new airport in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.

Cyprus was partitioned in 1974 when Turkey invaded the country in a coup aimed at unification with Greece. Türkiye recognizes the Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence. Turkey has also used F-16s to attack U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in northern Syria.

To complicate matters further, Erdogan said Turkey will not ratify Sweden’s NATO membership until October, as the Turkish parliament has a two-month summer break in August and September.

Last week, six members of the Greek and Armenian caucus of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urging the Biden administration to include “clear and substantial mechanisms to pause, delay, or return to F-16 sales” “if Turkey takes actions that threaten or undermine U.S. national security interests and the unity of the NATO alliance.”

“While we welcome the current pause in Turkey’s destabilizing actions in the region, it is important to emphasize that the Erdogan government has not changed its policy,” writes Chris Pappas, DC in a letter. “The impression that Turkey has improved relations with NATO ally Greece is belied by the fact that Ankara maintains a casus belli against Athens.”

Greece is also pushing to join Lockheed Martin’s F-35 joint production program, from which the United States excluded Turkey in 2019 after it acquired Russia’s S-400 missile defense system. The US fears that the S-400 radar system could allow Moscow to spy on stealth fighters. Both Turkey and Greece have lobbied against the respective US aircraft sales that their neighbor has been seeking.

The state of New Jersey, where Menendez lives, is home to the sixth largest Greek-American and fourth-largest Armenian-American diaspora in the United States. Despite his opposition to the F-16 sale, Menendez authorized the sale of $259 million in avionics software upgrades for Turkey’s existing F-16s in April.

“I’m against the F-16, but this is not an F-16 sale,” Menendez told Defense News after the State Department approved the sale of the avionics package. “It’s a sale to ensure the interoperability of existing aircraft in the NATO command structure, and for that reason I support it.”

Even if the sale of the F-16 eventually passes through Congress, it’s unclear when Turkey will get its new jet due to a backlog in the production of this sought-after fighter. Taiwan, for example, is also expecting 66 F-16s, roughly $8 billion out of a $19 billion US arms backlog to the Asian country.

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