ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed confidence Turkey would be readmitted to the US F-35 programme and receive the stealth fighter jets in line with “an agreement” with US President Donald Trump.
Washington booted Turkey out of its F-35 programme in 2019 and a year later imposed sanctions on Ankara over its purchase of an S-400 Russian surface-to-air missile defence system, but since Trump’s return to office, the two NATO allies appear keen to end the dispute.
“I believe that Mr. Trump will remain loyal to the agreement we made. I think the F-35s will be delivered to Turkey step-by-step during his term,“ Erdogan said while returning from Azerbaijan, the Anadolu state news agency reported Saturday.
He gave no further details about the agreement but said the move was “part of a geo-economic revolution.”
“The F-35 issue is not only a military technology issue for us, but also a strong partnership issue in international platforms such as NATO,“ he added.
The sanctions on Turkey’s defence sector have soured ties between the two allies but last weekend, Washington’s envoy to Ankara Tom Barrack said they were likely to be over “by the year’s end”.
Trump and Erdogan would instruct their top diplomats to “figure out the way and end it and Congress will support an intelligent solution”, he told Anadolu on Sunday.
In March, Erdogan spoke to Trump about the need to finalise a deal to let Turkey buy US F-16 fighter planes and be readmitted to the development programme for F-35 warplanes.
And last month, he said he saw an end in sight to the sanctions, saying Turkey had seen them eased under Trump.
