Turkiye has paused its bid to pursue a deal for F-16 fighter jets in order to prioritise its attempts to acquire F-35 fighter jets from the United States, amid Ankara’s potential reaccession into the advanced programme.
In recent weeks, Turkiye has increasingly made moves to persuade the US and its administration under President Donald Trump to allow it access back into the F-35 fighter jet programme, after Ankara was kicked out of the joint production venture back in 2019 due to its acquisition of Russia’s S-400 missile defence system.
The revived efforts to get back into the programme and to purchase numerous F-35 jets for its own military have led to the Turkish government last week offering to buy $20 billion in ammunition electronics, and parts from the US – as well as to shift away from its direct use of the S-400 system – in exchange for the readmission process.
The US-Turkiye S-400 and F-35 standoff: Future paths and implications
Now, according to sources quoted by the outlet Middle East Eye, Turkiye is willing to slow down its previous efforts to buy F-16 jets and instead redeploy those efforts and funds to prioritise the goal of acquiring F-35s.
As one source put it, Turkiye “put the brakes on the F-16 deal”, and the “down payment Ankara made [on the F-16s] could potentially be rerouted toward the F-35 programme, if Washington agrees to readmit Turkey”. The down payment the source referred to is the $1.4 billion that Ankara had initially made for the F-16 jets.
The redirecting of the payment is reportedly easily feasible due to the fact that both fighter jet models are manufactured by the US defence contractor Lockheed Martin, a second source said. The prioritisation of the F-35s, according to that source, is also more logical as “there’s a long production queue for F-16s. Ankara might have to wait years before receiving its first jets.”