Following the recent US approval of the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, a senior US official has said the country is ready to welcome Turkey back to the F-35 program if a dispute over Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system is resolved, Turkish broadcaster CNN Türk reported.
“If we could get through this S-400 issue, which we would like to do, the US would be delighted to welcome Turkiye back into the F-35 family,” US Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told CNN Türk during a visit to Turkey on Monday.
Turkey joined the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program (JSF) in 2007. It was one of the partner countries of the program along with other NATO allies such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Italy, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.
But Turkey was kicked out of the program by Washington in 2019 in protest of the Turkish government’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system, which Washington said posed a risk to its fifth-generation warplanes and NATO’s broader defense systems.
Despite warnings from the United States and other NATO allies, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan brokered a deal worth $2.5 billion with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the S-400 missile system in 2017.
Washington also imposed sanctions in December 2020 on Turkey’s military procurement agency as punishment for its purchase of the S-400 under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, which mandates penalties for transactions deemed harmful to US interests.
“If we can get through this issue, then the CAATSA issue will go away, and we can get back into an F-35 conversation,” Nuland said, according to a transcript of her remarks.
During the first round of negotiations, Turkey pledged to purchase 100 F-35 fighter jets.
In 2018 six F-35 jets were earmarked for Turkey on the condition that Turkish pilots be trained by the program before the actual delivery; however, the delivery of the fighter jets was postponed after the start of the S-400 crisis between the US and Turkey.
Washington later purchased the six jets from Turkey for use in the US Air Force.
Turkey was building about 900 parts for the F-35, including parts for the center fuselage and cockpit display.
Turkish contractors continued to produce parts for the aircraft through 2022.
In an attempt to modernize its aging air force, Turkey’s focus turned to buying F-16s after it was ousted from the F-35 program.
The US government on January 26 approved a $23 billion deal to sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s NATO membership.
The sale to Turkey includes 40 Lockheed Martin F-16s and equipment to modernize 79 of its existing F-16 fleet.
The US government also last week approved the sale of 40 F-35 fighter jets to Greece for a price of $8.6 billion.