Turkey is scaling back a planned $23 billion defense contract with the US to modernize NATO’s second largest fleet of F-16 fighter jets and will seek an offset agreement to produce some warplane parts locally, Bloomberg reported.
Ankara has been trying since 2021 to buy 40 of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s latest generation F-16s and 79 kits to modernize its existing fleet as well as hundreds of bombs and missiles. The US approved the sale earlier this year after Turkey ratified Sweden’s membership in the NATO alliance.
But Turkey is now pushing to buy fewer upgrade kits and munitions to save billions of dollars amid spending cuts at home, according to people familiar with the planning, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The country wants its developing military aviation industry to handle some of its needs, the people said. Turkey’s defense and foreign ministries declined to comment.
Asked about plans to review the contract during a news conference in Washington on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sidestepped the question, saying that “the issue regarding these spare parts is something we always discuss.”
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson said in a response to questions from Bloomberg News that the company is “confident the F-16 Block 70 and V upgrade package represents the best mix of advanced 21st Century Security capabilities, enhanced NATO interoperability, and affordable operating and life cycle costs for Turkey.”
The deal for the 4th generation of F-16 jets will strengthen Ankara’s air force with deliveries expected around 2030. It will feature several upgrades including to the radar, electronic warfare suite, communications system and mission computer.
“Turkey’s decision to buy F-16s served a political goal of jump starting relations with the US,” said Nihat Ali Özcan, a strategist at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara. “Having Washington’s signoff, Turkey is now assessing its needs from a technical, military and economic perspective.”
The deal will enable Ankara to retire its aging F-4 jets and modernize its existing fleet of F-16s as a stopgap measure until the country is capable of developing its own warplane.
The US blocked Turkey from buying Lockheed’s most advanced fighter jet, the F-35, in response to its decision to buy Russia’s S-400 missile-defense system. Ankara was an original F-35 partner, and its plan to buy about 100 jets made it one of the four top foreign customers for the stealth fighter.
Ankara now wants the US to lift sanctions on its defense industry but has refused to jettison the S-400s, but signaled readiness to work on a compromise with Washington. NATO members have worried that the S-400 system might pose a risk to F-35 fighter jets.
The US suspended 10 Turkish companies that were on track to make about $12 billion in F-35 parts, including the center fuselage produced by Turkish Aerospace Industries, according to a 2018 analysis by Bloomberg Government.