Erdogan says US, not Turkey, proposed F-16 sale
Turkey's president said the plan to sell dozens of F-16s to Ankara was Washington’s idea.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that the United States had offered to sell dozens of F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits to Ankara as compensation for Turkey’s costly expulsion from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
Reuters previously reported that Turkey had formally submitted a request to the United States to buy 40 F-16s and dozens of additional modernization kits for Ankara’s existing fleet, following a report in a Greek newspaper.
The United States removed Turkey from a list of Western-allied nations allowed to purchase the fifth-generation F-35 aircraft after Ankara bought Russia’s S-400 missile defense system in 2017.
American officials over two US administrations have insisted the S-400 poses a threat to the F-35. Turkey received its first S-400 unit in 2019 and later reportedly tested its tracking system on F-16s.
