Turkey will participate in another round of talks with US defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. to resolve a dispute over pricing for new F-16 Block 70 fighter jets, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally raised the issue with US President Donald Trump during their meeting at the White House in September, according to the same sources.
Although the US Congress approved Turkey’s purchase of 40 F-16 Block 70 Vipers in February 2024, Ankara has resisted Lockheed Martin’s demand that it pay additional costs related to upgrades of the fighter’s mission computer and the expansion of production lines to address a global order backlog.
Turkey, the world’s largest F-16 operator outside the United States, is also seeking access to the aircraft’s mission computer source code to integrate its domestically developed air-to-air and air-to-ground missile systems, as well as new radar technologies, Turkish defense officials told Bloomberg.
Lockheed Martin said in a statement that the F-16 Block 70 “offers affordable operating and lifecycle costs,” adding that questions regarding the negotiations should be directed to the US and Turkish governments. The White House did not comment, and Turkey’s defense ministry declined to respond to inquiries.
Defense analysts say Ankara’s parallel negotiations with both Washington and London underscore its effort to modernize its fleet before its homegrown KAAN fifth-generation fighter becomes operational. “Turkey wants to avoid an operational gap while maintaining leverage in its dealings with both Washington and London,” one European defense official told Bloomberg.
Turkey has also expressed interest in rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program if US congressional sanctions imposed over its 2019 purchase of Russian-made S-400 air defense missiles are lifted. During Erdoğan’s September visit, Trump reportedly suggested he was open to that possibility, though no agreement has emerged.
While Ankara has signaled willingness to discuss a joint supervision mechanism for the S-400 systems, it has refused to abandon them completely — a key US demand.
Turkey’s push to expand its fighter fleet comes as Greece, its regional rival, has finalized orders for both French Rafale and US-made F-35 jets. Ankara recently signed a $10.7 billion deal with Britain to buy 20 Eurofighter Typhoons and plans to acquire 24 more secondhand Typhoons — 12 each from Qatar and Oman — with deliveries expected in early 2026.
Analysts view the outcome of the F-16 talks as a key test of US–Turkey defense relations, strained since Ankara’s expulsion from the F-35 program. If pricing negotiations succeed, deliveries of the F-16 Block 70s could begin near the end of the decade, though officials caution the timeline depends on final cost agreements and production capacity at Lockheed’s South Carolina facilities.