Washington: Obstacles to selling F-35 to Türkiye will be removed soon

According to Isna, a senior American diplomatic official announced that Türkiye is getting closer to crossing an important obstacle that has prevented the country from buying American F-35 fighter jets for years.

According to Bloomberg, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barak announced that Ankara has resolved the “operational problems” of the S-400 missile systems and that these systems will not be used.

However, he emphasized that Türkiye’s continued ownership of this Russian system still creates problems for Washington.

“My belief is that these issues will be resolved in the next 4 to 6 months,” Barak said at a conference in Abu Dhabi. In response to the question of whether Turkey is close to abandoning this Russian system completely, he said: “Yes.”

During the September meeting between US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House, the issue of S-400 was also raised. The purchase of this system by Türkiye about a decade ago, caused this country to be removed from the development program of F-35 fighters and to impose sanctions known as “KATSA” against some Turkish defense companies.

The United States has argued that the S-400 systems pose a threat to the stealth capability of the F-35 fighter, while Ankara has said it will take steps to address these concerns and will not include the Russian equipment in NATO’s defense architecture.

In September, Trump said he might allow Turkey to buy F-35 fighter jets, insisting that Erdogan “will do something for us,” without elaborating.

America and Türkiye have two large NATO armies and this has created an incentive to reduce the tension between the two countries. However, Türkiye still needs to maintain a balance with Russia; A country that is one of the main suppliers of natural gas and crude oil for the 1.5 trillion dollar economy of this country.

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