#Biden #Erdogan #signals #support #Turkish #F16s
President Joe Biden on Wednesday thanked his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for dropping opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, and the US also signaled support for Turkey’s plan to buy F-16 fighter jets.
“I especially want to thank you for what you did to put together the situation regarding Finland and Sweden,” Biden Erdogan said at a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.
A senior US official expressed strong support for Turkey’s desire to upgrade its air force with new F-16 fighter jets and improvements to its existing older fleet.
“The US Department of Defense fully supports Turkey’s modernization plans,” Celeste Wallander, deputy secretary of defense for international security affairs, told reporters.
“Turkey is a highly capable, highly valued, strategic NATO ally, and Turkey’s defense capabilities, strong Turkish defense capabilities, contribute to strong NATO defense capabilities,” she said.
Biden’s heartfelt words and apparent boost to belated F-16 purchases came a day after Turkey surprised other NATO members by suddenly dropping weeks of opposition to Finland and Sweden’s bids to join the alliance, where unanimous approval is required for enlargement.
On Tuesday, a senior US official stressed that Turkey had not asked for a “specific concession” to give it the green light.
Turkey is a key NATO member in a strategically sensitive location, but it has often had strained relations with its European partners and Washington, the alliance’s main military power.
A plan to arm Turkey with state-of-the-art US F-35 stealth fighters fell through after Turkey bought Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, which Washington saw as a potential security threat to the F-35 program.
Next, Turkey wanted to buy new F-16 fighter jets, as well as upgrades to its existing but aging fleet of the same aircraft. However, that deal is also on hold, and there has been speculation that Turkey is holding back offers from the two northern European countries to join NATO in order to try and make concessions.
“There is nothing that the United States has offered directly related to this,” the US official said after Turkey ended that blockade.
“Nothing about Turkish requests to the United States was part of this deal. This is an agreement exclusively between the three countries – Turkey, Finland, Sweden. The United States is not part of it.”
In brief comments early in Wednesday’s meeting with Erdogan, before reporters were forced to leave the room, Biden also praised the Turkish leader for doing a “great job” in trying to find ways to get Ukrainian wheat out of the country bring to the markets.
Russia’s invasion, including the seizure of rich agricultural lands and coastlines, has seriously disrupted the flow of grain to international customers and helped trigger an increasingly serious food supply crisis.
The United States and its allies say Russia is using food insecurity as a weapon of war, which Moscow denies.
“I’d like to talk to you about these things,” Biden said.
In comments through a translator, Erdogan said he was satisfied with the outcome of the Madrid summit.
“Thanks to our efforts, we believe we can return to our countries with our hands full and full of satisfaction,” he said.
Referring to the food crisis, Erdogan said: “There are countries that are deprived of grain and we will open corridors and give them access to grain.”
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