WASHINGTON — Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met with his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken in Washington on Wednesday to secure a $20 billion arms sale that includes 40 Lockheed Martin Block 70 F-16 fighter jets as well as upgrades to Turkey’s current fleet of F-16s.
But the US State Department has yet to formally notify Congress of the potential deal, and a key senator has vowed to block it.
If the sale is approved by Congress, Turkey may still have to wait a long time before receiving the new planes amid a backlog in F-16 production.
Sen. Bob Menendez, DNJ, has repeatedly said he would use his position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to block the sale, and he has shown no signs of backing down.
“I strongly oppose the Biden administration’s proposed sale of new F-16s to Turkey,” Menendez said in a statement. “President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan continues to undermine international law, disregard human rights and democratic norms, and engage in disturbing and destabilizing behavior in Turkey and against neighboring NATO allies.
“Until Erdogan stops his threats, improves his human rights record at home – including by freeing journalists and the political opposition – and acts as a trusted ally, I will not approve this sale.”
But it remains to be seen how quickly F-16 maker Lockheed Martin can build those planes for Turkey.
“We have a significant backlog for the F-16,” Erin Moseley, vice president of strategy and business development for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, said in a July 2022 interview with Defense News at the Farnborough Air Show in England. Moseley also said international customers are showing “tremendous interest” in buying new F-16s.
Lockheed Chief Financial Officer Jay Malave also said on an earnings call last summer that the F-16 backlog was 128 fighters. For example, Taiwan is also waiting for 66 F-16s, part of an estimated $8 billion of the broader backlog of total U.S. arms sales to the Asian nation, which now exceeds $14 billion.
Malave also said on the earnings call that Lockheed has increased its F-16 production operations in Greenville, South Carolina, with nearly 50 employees who have moved from another part of the company. Lockheed has been building the F-16 for foreign customers in South Carolina since 2019, when it moved the production line from Fort Worth, Texas.
Lockheed Martin referred Defense News’ inquiries to the US government.
F-35 for Greece?
Menendez praised another major arms sale involving Lockheed Martin: an upcoming deal for Greece to buy 20 F-35As. Greece and Turkey continue to lobby the US to keep the other side from getting fighter jets amid ongoing tensions between the two NATO members.
“This defense capability is not only critical to the efforts of a trusted NATO ally and permanent partner to advance security and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean, but also strengthens the ability of our two nations to defend shared principles, including our collective defense, democracy , human rights and the rule of law,” Menendez said of the potential F-35 sale to Greece.
Menendez’s home state of New Jersey boasts the sixth-largest Greek-American population in the US and the fourth-largest Armenian-American population, making Turkey particularly unpopular with some of his constituents.
The US State Department has yet to formally notify Congress of the sale to Greece, which is also seeking to join the F-35 co-production program.
The US kicked Turkey out of this program in 2019 over Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. The US government has raised concerns about the system’s advanced radar and the possibility that its presence in Turkey could allow Russia to spy on F-35 stealth fighters.
Congressman Frank Pallone, DNJ, a member of the Greek Congressional Caucus, also issued a statement Wednesday criticizing the Biden administration’s proposed sale of F-16s to Turkey. He promised to work with Menendez to block the deal.
Specifically, he singled out “Erdogan’s furious rhetoric advocating the invasion of Greek and Cypriot sovereign territory and encouraging illegal overflights by Turkish aircraft.” He also accused the Turkish president of holding “Finnish and Swedish applications for NATO membership hostage until his absurd and unrelated demands are met.”
The State Department is negotiating with Congress about a potential F-16 sale, but department spokesman Ned Price declined to disclose the Biden administration’s private conversations with lawmakers. Still, Price pointed to overwhelming support on Capitol Hill for Finland and Sweden to join NATO — a bid to join that Erdogan has stalled because he wants the extradition of political dissidents Turkey labels as terrorists, including several Kurds.
“Our partners on the Hill, at least a few of them, have made no secret of their opposition to this,” Price told Defense News at a State Department news conference Wednesday in response to a question about the F-16 sale. “We encourage Turkey, Finland [and] For Sweden to find a way to achieve what we would all like to see, which is the rapid accession of Finland and Sweden as NATO’s newest allies. There is strong support within the alliance… there is strong support within the US Congress for Finland and Sweden to become NATO’s newest members.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the Turkish government has repeatedly threatened to launch another large-scale offensive against US-backed forces in northeastern Syria ahead of Turkey’s presidential election in May.
The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Council last year lobbied the Biden administration and Congress against the sale of fighter jets to Turkey, citing Ankara’s use of F-16s to target civilian infrastructure in northeastern Syria.
Bryant Harris is a congressional reporter for Defense News. He has covered US foreign policy, national security, international relations and Washington politics since 2014. He also writes for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.
Stephen Losey is an air war reporter for Defense News. Previously, he covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover US Air Force operations.
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