US President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged congressional lawmakers to approve the sale of F-16 combat aircraft to Turkey after the country agreed to allow Sweden to join NATO.
On Tuesday, the Turkish parliament voted in favour of Sweden joining NATO, sending the decision to Erdogan for his signature. Biden called Turkey’s approval of Sweden’s NATO membership a prerequisite for the sale of the planes, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also linked the two issues.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Wednesday pledged that his legislature would approve Sweden’s accession, but gave no timeline for when the vote might take place.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Mr. Erdogan in Istanbul this month and persuaded him that Turkey should approve Sweden’s accession to the EU. According to US officials, Mr. Blinken tried to reassure him that the F-16 sale would go ahead.
Starting in 2021, Turkey has sought to buy 40 Lockheed Martin Corp. aircraft. F-16 Block 70 from the US company and 79 kits to modernise its fleet. Turkey wants to scrap its F-4 jets and modernise the F-16s as an interim measure until it can develop its own warplanes. Sweden began the process of joining NATO after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022.
