Turkish Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin confirmed reports that Turkey will buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States he also specified the details of the Turkish letter to the US saying that Turkey would buy around 40 F-16 fighter jets from the United States using the money from the F-35 deal.
“Our first choice is to buy the F-35s that we are entitled to. If this crisis with the United States comes to an end, Turkey will be back in the program, we will get our F-35s but if it is not solved, we will continue our search for alternatives.”
Ibrahim Kalin stated that alternatives can be evaluated in exchange for the money they paid, “After seeing the conditions, a final decision is made within the framework of our needs.
For the $1.4 billion paid to the F-35 program, the increase of our existing F-16 fleet and the modernization of the F-16s we have can be considered as an alternative. The issue is just taking shape.” Ibrahim Kalin stated but as we have analyzed in GEOPOLITIKI.COM it is difficult even for the F-16 program to proceed.
As even if the Pentagon approves the modernization the US Congress is highly unlikely to approve it with senator Bob Menendez Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee stating multiple times that no US arms sales will be approved to Turkey if Erdogan doesn’t change his position on the Russian S-400 air defence systems.
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