Turkey insists on separation between F16 sales, NATO enlargement
Sweden’s Defense Minister Pal Jonson is headed to Turkey next week in the first visit by a Swedish official since tensions ramped up over Swedish protesters hanging an effigy of Turkey's president.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Wednesday that Ankara dropping its objections to the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO should not be a precondition for the US sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.
“The two issues are separate and are running their own course,” Cavusoglu told Turkish journalists after meeting with his US counterpart Anthony Blinken in Washington Wednesday.
Cavusoglu said that Turkey’s swift ratification of NATO’s Nordic accession has never been “officially presented” as a precondition for the sale, though “many” on the American side had told Ankara that speeding up the accession process would have “a positive effect” on Congress.
Ankara made a request to Washington for 40 F-16 jets and modernization kits, and last week the State Department informally notified Congress of the potential sale.
