Turkey snubs US pressure on F-16s as Biden meets Swedish Premier

With President Joe Biden set to meet Sweden’s prime minister on Wednesday, Turkey rebuffed US attempts to link Ankara’s request to buy F-16 warplanes to its approval of the Nordic nation’s membership in NATO.

Biden’s meeting with Sweden’s Ulf Kristersson in Washington comes as Turkey’s president downplayed the chances of a significant breakthrough at talks this week to bring Sweden into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, amid a row over the burning of a Koran in Stockholm. The deadlock has continued for more than a year, and there had been hopes of a resolution at a meeting of alliance leaders next week.

A bipartisan group of Senators told Biden earlier this year that the Congress shouldn’t consider F-16 fighter jet sales to Turkey until the country ratifies Sweden’s membership, after allowing Finland to join in April.

Turkey argues that the sale of F-16s is a matter related to the broader security of NATO and that it cannot be linked to progress on the membership bid of a candidate country, according to Turkish officials who are directly familiar with the matter. While Turkey wants Sweden to join NATO, it continues to insist the Nordic country must uphold pledges to crack down on terrorism, the officials said.

Sweden lifted a ban on arms sales to Turkey and amended its anti-terrorism laws as part of a deal clinched last year to break the impasse. In Sweden’s view, the new legal measures satisfy its last remaining obligation under an agreement signed at NATO’s Madrid summit to pave the way for ratification.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may possibly meet Biden on the sidelines of next week’s NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to push for the purchase of dozens of new F-16 warplanes and upgrade kits to modernize his nation’s fleet, the officials said. Turkey expects Washington to approve the sale to augment the military capability of the second largest army within NATO after the US, they added.

Ankara has exerted pressure on Sweden to extradite or expel suspects, including supporters of Kurdish separatists, and now wants to hear a solid plan from Stockholm during discussions between the foreign ministers of Turkey, Sweden and Finland on Thursday, the officials said.

Turkey wants to upgrade its F-16 fleet as a stopgap measure until it eventually develops its own jets. Turkey sent a formal request to the US to buy 40 new F-16 Block 70 aircraft and nearly 80 kits from Lockheed Martin Corp. to modernize its existing fighters in the fall of 2021. The Pentagon in 2019 ousted Turkey from the program to buy — and help build — Lockheed Martin’s more advanced F-35 fighter over its purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems on grounds that it might be used to gather intelligence on the stealth jet.

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