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US opens door for Turkey’s return to F-35 stealth jet programme – but Israel’s not happy
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The United States is set to resume military sales to Turkey, Nato’s second-largest military power, after President Donald Trump said sanctions imposed against Ankara over its procurement of Russian air defence systems seven years ago would soon be lifted.
“We don’t want to sanction friends,” Trump told journalists at the Nato summit in the Turkish capital on Wednesday, while emphasising his “good chemistry” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Trump further said he would soon take a final decision on restoring Turkey’s participation in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme – raising expectations among observers of a “face-saving” deal in which Ankara would transfer its Russian S-400 systems to a third country in return for US F-35 stealth warplanes.
Turkey was ejected from the F-35 programme – for which it was manufacturing some components – in 2019 over US concerns that the cutting-edge jet’s unrivalled stealth capabilities could be compromised by its exposure to Russian technology.
The understanding reached between Washington and Ankara “is a strategic reset in spirit but not yet in practical terms”, said Asli Aydintasbas, director of the Turkey project at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Clearly, President Trump values his relationship with Erdogan and wants Turkey to be a central player in his Nato, Europe and Middle East policies.”
After years of turmoil, “this is the closest Erdogan has come to the reset with Washington he has been seeking” – but it is “not full normalisation yet”, she said. “The congressional part of the equation is still not there.”
