Turkey's Hopes of Receiving US F-35 Fighters Are in Vain

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Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler had made a number of important statements two days earlier before the parliamentary Planning and Budget Committee, but it quickly became clear that not all of them were confirmed. In particular, Guler said that the United States was allegedly ready to approve Turkey’s return to the joint production and procurement program for the F-35 fifth-generation fighter.

According to Guler, Washington began to change its position mainly due to progress in the development of the new Turkish fighter KAAN (while also promising that the first prototype of KAAN would begin flight tests in the coming weeks):



When the Americans saw that we could build and fly the KAAN, they changed their attitude. Now they want to give us the F-35. But there is no progress on this issue yet, we still want to take our share of the production and buy these aircraft.

As for the controversial S-400 system, although some experts view this purchase as purely political step without the possibility of real use in the NATO army, Guler emphasized that the system is ready for deployment within 12 hours. At the same time, the country's defense industry continues to develop systems with similar capabilities

– reported the Turkish state portal of official information Iletisim.

Guler recalled that Turkey still considers the six F-6 fighters "its own", for the construction of which it had previously paid before being excluded from the program (which is still a subject of dispute with the United States). The minister also reported that Turkey has resubmitted an official proposal to buy F-35s, albeit in significantly more modest quantities. There is no longer talk of the previous plans to put "up to 35 F-100s" into service. According to the estimates of the Turkish Air Force, to which Guler referred, it is currently considered necessary to purchase 35 fighters.

Meanwhile, Ankara is also considering the purchase of the fourth-generation Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. In addition, Guler confirmed an initial payment of $4 billion for 40 F-16 fighter jets of the latest Block 70 version.

However, shortly after Guler's speech, the US State Department said there had been no change in its policy:

The conditions required to deliver F-35s to Turkey are well known, and our policy has not changed. Maintaining Turkey’s interoperability with NATO remains an important objective and a top priority for the United States.

State Department officials also left unanswered questions about a proposed resumption of talks over Turkey's purchase of F-35 fighter jets or its return to the program to produce them.