US agrees to sell Turkey jets after Ankara approves Sweden’s Nato bid

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The Biden administration has told US lawmakers that it intends to sell Turkey $23bn worth of F-16 fighter jets after Ankara formally cleared Sweden’s bid to join the Nato military alliance.

The US Department of State notified Congress that it planned to approve Turkey’s request to buy 40 F-16s, according to an announcement late on Friday by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The US also intends to sell Turkey kits to modernise 79 existing F-16 jets as part of the deal. 

US approval of the arms deal, which Turkey first proposed more than two years ago, is expected bring to a close a long-running saga that has dogged relations between the Nato allies.

“These new and refurbished aircraft will provide Turkey with a fleet of modernised multi-role combat aircraft to enable it to provide for the defence of its airspace, contribute to Nato missions to preserve regional security and defend Nato Allies”, DSCA said.

The US also said on Friday that it planned to approve Greece’s request to purchase almost $9bn of latest-generation F-35 fighter jets. That deal had also been caught up by the deadlock in approving Turkey’s F-16 purchases.

The White House had linked its approval of Turkey’s purchases to the country ratifying Sweden’s Nato bid, while Ankara insisted the US had to approve the arms deal as a condition for fulfilling Stockholm’s request. In addition to pushing the US to clear its F-16 purchases, Turkey also demanded numerous concessions from Stockholm related to security.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed off on Sweden’s accession to Nato on Thursday. The move leaves Hungary as the lone holdout among Nato members on approving Stockholm’s request. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said this week Hungary was committed to ratifying Sweden’s bid to join Nato, but he also invited Swedish counterpart…