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Turkey says it will not buy F-16s from the US if conditions are imposed

Turkey will not buy F-16 fighter jets from the US if restrictions on their use are imposed, the country’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.

It is noted that the US House proposed in July to allow President Joe Biden to sell upgraded F-16s to Turkey on the condition that Ankara does not use them for unauthorized overflights over Greek territories.

“Technical talks are going on very well, but we will not agree to buy a product in a way that could limit us,” Cavusoglu said in an interview with Haber Global TV. “Why buy a product we can’t use? We expect the US government to continue working to convince Congress to sell.”

It is recalled that Turkey has turned its attention to the F-16 purchase to upgrade its fleet of US warplanes after being excluded from the program to build and purchase the next-generation F-35 fighters. That blockade came in response to Turkey’s purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defense system, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said was urgently needed for his country’s defense.

Erdogan even accused Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in May of orchestrating a lobbying effort against Turkey in Congress to block the sale of the F-16s.

Source: Capital

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