{"id":1969439,"date":"2023-07-11T10:04:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T14:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-green-lights-f-16s-to-turkey-after-it-agrees-to-swedens-nato-bid\/"},"modified":"2023-07-11T10:04:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T14:04:57","slug":"us-green-lights-f-16s-to-turkey-after-it-agrees-to-swedens-nato-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-green-lights-f-16s-to-turkey-after-it-agrees-to-swedens-nato-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"US approves F-16s for Turkey after NATO bid accepted by Sweden."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fus-green-lights-f-16s-to-turkey-after-it-agrees-to-swedens-nato-bid%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1969439&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<h2>Washington to Proceed with F-16 Fighter Jet Transfer to Turkey<\/h2>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Washington will move ahead with the transfer of F-<span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">16<\/span> fighter jets to Turkey in consultation with Congress, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday, a day after Ankara gave the green light for Sweden to join NATO.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Turkey, which had been the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-green-lights-<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/stealth-fighters-performance-not-living-up-to-the-price-tag\/\" title=\"Stealth Fighter\u2019s Performance Not Living Up to the Price Tag\">f-16s<\/a>-to-turkey-after-it-agrees-to-swedens-nato-bid\/&#8221; title=&#8221;US approves F-16s for Turkey after NATO bid accepted by Sweden.&#8221;>main stumbling bloc<\/a> on Sweden&#8217;s path towards the alliance, had requested in October 2021 to buy $20 billion of Lockheed Martin Corp F-<span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">16<\/span> fighters and nearly 80 modernisation kits for its existing warplanes.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking ahead of a summit of NATO leaders that started on Tuesday in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Sullivan said U.S. President Joe Biden &#8220;had been clear that he supports the transfer&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He has placed no caveats on this &#8230; He intends to move forward with that transfer,&#8221; Sullivan told reporters, without giving any details on the timing.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a Democrat who had blocked the transfer, said on Monday he is in talks with the Biden administration about his hold and that he could make a decision &#8220;in the next week&#8221;, suggesting he could lift it.<\/p>\n<p>Both Turkish officials and the Biden administration have rejected any suggestion that Ankara&#8217;s approval of Sweden&#8217;s NATO accession was being linked to the F-<span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">16<\/span> sale in the months of talks to address Turkish opposition.<\/p>\n<p>However, some diplomats and analysts believe that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had been using Swedish membership to pressure Washington on the warplanes, and that Biden made a deal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There seems to have been a big push by the Biden administration to allow Turkey to modernise its air force and acquire new F-<span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">16<\/span>s,&#8221; said Camille Grand, a defence specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This push together with the Swedish efforts on the PKK front might have played an important role in convincing Erdogan to move forward on Sweden.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One former French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, wrote on Twitter in response to Sullivan&#8217;s announcement that &#8220;&#8216;The Swedish blackmail&#8217; paid&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>To explain its opposition to Sweden&#8217;s NATO accession, Ankara had accused it of not doing enough against people Turkey sees as terrorists, mainly members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU and the United States.<\/p>\n<p>A statement issued by Turkey and Sweden on Monday said Sweden had reiterated that it would not provide support to the Kurdish groups and would actively support efforts to reinvigorate Turkey&#8217;s EU accession process.<\/p>\n<p>Russian officials said Sweden&#8217;s expected accession to NATO would have &#8220;negative implications&#8221; for Russia&#8217;s security and that Moscow would have to respond.<\/p>\n<h3>Timing Uncertain<\/h3>\n<p>The timing of both the F-<span data-qa-component=\"highlight-text\">16<\/span> transfer and Sweden&#8217;s NATO entry remains unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey&#8217;s parliament is not scheduled to convene until after the summer, and Hungary also still needs to ratify the accession treaty, although Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a statement on Tuesday that it was &#8220;only a technical issue&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>All NATO states need to ratify a new member.<\/p>\n<p>NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Erdogan had agreed to push ratification in parliament &#8220;as soon as possible&#8221;, but he could not give a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-state-legislature-passes-fetal-heartbeat-abortion-bill\/\" title=\"Texas state legislature passes fetal heartbeat abortion bill\">specific time frame<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It took two weeks for Turkey&#8217;s parliament to ratify Finland&#8217;s membership. Finland had applied alongside Sweden after Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 overturned the two Nordic nations&#8217; security considerations.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by Steve Holland, Justyna Pawlak; editing by John Irish, Nick Macfie, Heather Timmons and Devika Syamnath)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington will proceed with the F-16 fighter jets&#8217; transfer to Turkey, consulting Congress, as confirmed by U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. This decision follows Turkey&#8217;s approval for Sweden to join NATO, despite Turkey previously hindering Sweden&#8217;s alliance aspirations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":1969440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1969439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1969440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}