Fri 03 February 2023:
A bipartisan group of senators in the United States Congress has stated that Washington will not support the $20 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey until Ankara ratifies Sweden and Finland’s NATO memberships.
After Russian President Vladimir Putin launched’special military operations’ against Ukraine, which quickly escalated into a full-fledged war, Sweden and Helsinki sought to join a trans-Atlantic defense pact last year. It soon encountered Turkiye opposition, which continues to this day.
Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm to take a tougher line against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terror group by Turkey and the European Union. Turkiye also wants the two countries to geopolitically assert against another group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
The three nations reached an agreement on a way forward in Madrid last June. Last month, however, after a Danish politician in Stockholm burned a copy of the Muslim holy book Quran, Ankara suspended the talks.
After a cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara last week President Erdoan said, that wiithout changing course on showing respect for Islam and cracking down on terror groups, Sweden should not expect any good news from Türkiye on its NATO bid.
Erdoğan’s pointed remarks came after Rasmus Paludan, an extreme-right Danish politician, on Saturday burned a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, under police protection and with permission from the Swedish government.
“If you do not show respect to the religious beliefs of the Republic of Türkiye or Muslims, you will not receive any support for NATO (membership) from us,” he added.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, 29 Democratic and Republican senators said that Finland and Sweden were making “full and good faith efforts” to meet the conditions for NATO membership that Turkiye asked.
Ankara, however, says that Sweden needs to do more.
“Once the NATO accession protocols are ratified by Turkiye, Congress can consider the sale of F-16 fighter jets. A failure to do so, however, would call into question this pending sale,” the senators wrote.
It was the first time Congress explicitly and directly linked the F-16 sale to Turkey with the NATO accession bids of the two Nordic countries.
Turkiye has said it could approve Finland’s NATO membership application ahead of Sweden’s. However, leaders of Finland and Sweden have rejected this idea, saying that the security of the two Nordic countries is mutually dependent.
Of NATO’s 30 members, only Turkiye and Hungary have yet to ratify the Nordic countries’ memberships.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:
TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent
FACEBOOK (CLICK HERE)
https://web.facebook.com/ipindependent
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
