Turkey scales back $23 billion F-16 deal with US

ANKARA — Turkey scaled back a $23 billion military sales package that includes 40 new F-16 Block 70 fighter jets and 79 modernization kits for its existing fleet, Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said.

“We gave up on these 79” modernization kits, Guler told lawmakers during a parliamentary debate on Tuesday evening, according to an official transcript of the minutes.

“We gave up on that for this reason: Our TUSAS facilities are currently capable of carrying out the F-16 modernization themselves, so we’ll transfer it to them,” he added, using the acronym of the Turkish Aerospace Industries.

Turkey tabled its bid for the new F-16s in 2020 after it was expelled in 2019 from an international consortium that manufactures next-generation F-35 fighter jets under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act over its purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems. The act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress in 2017 to deter significant defense transactions with Russia.

Guler said Turkey was still seeking to return to the F-35 program, under which it had already paid roughly $1.4 billion to acquire the jets before its purchase was blocked. 

“We are both insisting on the return of our production share and expressing our desire to acquire a total of 40 F-35 aircraft,” he said.

Ankara and Washington were working on a reconciliation regarding the S-400s involving the transfer of the Russian systems to US-controlled parts of Incirlik Air Base on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast in return for its purchase of the F-35s, the Greek press reported in September.

Guler suggested on Tuesday that the two capitals might have agreed on a location to keep the S-400s. “In our recent meetings with the Americans regarding the S-400s, they said things like, 'You will do this, you will do that.' We rejected all of it,” Guler said.

“Currently, on the condition that [the S-400s] remain at a location of what we have agreed to, the Americans no longer have any objections concerning the S-400s,” he added without providing further details.

The Biden administration formally endorsed the F-16 sale in January of this year after Turkey approved Sweden’s NATO membership, dropping nearly two years of objections. The expansion of the transatlantic alliance became a key foreign policy agenda item for the Biden administration amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Turkey, NATO’s second-largest army, is also seeking to expedite the procurement process in a bid to maintain the deterrence capabilities of its air fleet.