Biden administration to ask Congress to approve F-16 sale to Turkiye

The Biden administration is preparing to seek congressional approval for a $20 billion sale of new F-16 jet fighters to Turkiye along with a separate sale of next-generation F-35 warplanes to Greece, Report informs referring to The Wall Street Journal.

Administration officials intend the prospect of the sale to prod Turkiye to sign off on Finland and Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Ankara has blocked over objections to their ties to Kurdish separatist groups.

Congress’s approval of the sale is contingent on Turkiye’s acquiescence, administration officials said. The two countries ended decades of neutrality when they decided to join NATO last year in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The sale to Turkiye, which the administration has been considering for more than a year, is larger than expected. It includes 40 new aircraft and kits to overhaul 79 of Turkiye’s existing F-16 fleet, according to officials familiar with the proposals.

Congressional notification of the deal will roughly coincide with a visit to Washington next week by Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. The sale to Turkiye also includes more than 900 air-to-air missiles and 800 bombs, one of the officials said.