Trump says US will lift CAATSA sanctions on Turkey, consider F-35 sale
The US president has announced that sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of Russian missile batteries will be lifted.
ANKARA — US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration would remove sanctions imposed on Turkey under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
“We're going to be taking the sanctions off,” Trump told reporters during the on-camera portion of his bilateral talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
“We are going to be taking the sanction off. It's time," he said. "We don't want to sanction friends. It's very simple.”
During his first term, Trump removed Turkey from the international consortium that manufactures the F-35s and blocked Ankara from buying the jets in 2019 after Ankara received the first batch of S-400 batteries from Russia.
Washington imposed CAATSA sanctions in December 2020. Since then, Turkey has avoided deploying the S-400s beyond test firings in 2020 and the systems remain stored at an undisclosed location.
Speaking next to Erdogan on Tuesday, Trump added that he would also consider selling F-35 jets to Turkey.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
