Biden says he and Erdogan talked about the F-16s, Sweden’s bid for NATO

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call on Monday reiterated Ankara’s desire to buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States, US President Joe Biden said, while Biden told him Washington wanted Ankara to drop its objection to Sweden. . joining NATO.

The exchange took place when Biden called Erdogan to congratulate him on his victory in Sunday’s Turkish presidential election.

“I spoke to Erdogan. I congratulated Erdogan. He still wants to work on something on the F-16s. I told him we want a deal with Sweden, so let’s get that done. And so we’ll get back in touch with someone,” Biden told reporters before leaving the White House for Delaware. .

Asked if he expected any move from Erdogan on Sweden’s membership in NATO, Biden said: “I raised this issue with him. We’ll talk more about it next week.”

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, abandoning long-standing military non-alignment policies in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bids for membership must be approved by all NATO members. Türkiye and Hungary have yet to accept Sweden’s offer.

Turkey has sought to buy up to $20 billion worth of F-16s and nearly 80 upgrade kits from the United States. But the deal has stalled over objections from the US Congress over Ankara’s refusal to greenlight NATO expansion and its record on human rights and Syria policy, even though the Biden administration has repeatedly said it supports the sale.

The US Congress earlier this year approved a much smaller $259 million package, including avionics software upgrades for Turkey’s existing fleet of F-16 fighter jets, days after Turkey ratified Finland’s accession to NATO.

The Biden administration has repeatedly rejected any assertion of any “trade-off” between the sale and NATO expansion, although Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in January that the US side had made it clear that approval of NATO’s bids would be viewed favorably. Congress.

A bipartisan group of senators said in a February letter to Biden that Turkey’s failure to ratify the accession protocols of Sweden and Finland, which was still pending at the time, would “call into question this pending sale,” referring to F-16s.

A source familiar with the discussions said the United States had earlier told Turkey that it would be difficult to persuade Congress to approve the F-16 deal if Ankara did not give the green light to Sweden.

Turkey ratified Finland’s accession to NATO in late March, but has continued to object to Sweden, saying Stockholm harbors members of armed groups it considers terrorist. Hungary has not yet accepted Sweden’s offer.

Among Washington’s top priorities is to see Sweden join NATO by mid-July, when the alliance is due to hold a leaders’ summit in Lithuania.

In a statement regarding the contact between Biden and Erdogan, the Turkish presidency said that the two leaders agreed to deepen cooperation in all aspects of their bilateral relations, which have grown in importance in facing regional and global challenges.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Hamira Pamuk) Editing by Leslie Adler, Chris Rees, and Tom Hogg

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