Türkiye faces a tough choice; F-35 or S-400?

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, there is not much chance before the deadline. There are 15 days left for the US Congress and Ankara is looking forward to announcing an important decision. A decision based on which members of Congress will determine whether the Joe Biden administration is allowed to sell 45 F-16 fighter jets to Turkey and modernize the country’s old fighters or not?

It is not yet clear what the final answer will be, but analysts in Ankara say that during Erdogan’s Cabinet Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s visit to New York, an initial promise was made by his American counterpart Blinken. Of course, the whole informal statement of Blinken’s promise to Fidan is: “We have made the necessary orders and done whatever is necessary to convince Congress”.

Blinken’s opening speech is so vague And it’s diplomatic that Erdogan’s government still doesn’t know if it’s actually going to take delivery of its new fighters anytime soon. But the important thing is that Washington took a new step in the last few days and practically brought Erdogan’s government into a new phase of astonishment. The story is that with Mrs. Noland’s trip to Turkey, the curtain was lifted on a new tactic that can bring Ankara-Washington relations into a new phase.

Noland’s Strange Proposal for Erdogan

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has visited Turkey before, but he never He has not gone to Turkey for a bilateral visit. Once during the presidency of Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, he went to Turkey in order to express his sympathy to the earthquake victims, and once he went to Istanbul as part of a regional visit to investigate the situation in Gaza.

But before, Wendy Sherman was the highest official of the Biden administration who traveled to Turkey, and after her, we also saw the visit of Victoria Nuland, the US Deputy Secretary of State, to Turkey. This approach of the Biden government shows that the Biden team still does not want to establish warm relations with the Erdogan team and prefers that even an important issue such as the sale or non-sale of the F-16 fighter is ultimately pursued at the level of the deputy minister.

Turkish media did not publish specific details about the content of the meeting between Fidan and the political deputy secretary of the US. But Noland himself, in an interview with a Turkish TV channel, exploded the news bomb and showed how much the Biden team’s view of Erdogan’s government is affected by the Russian issue.

Nuland expressed hope that Turkey will abandon the Russian S-400 missile system and, in return, the United States will once again include Turkey in the list of producers and buyers of the F-35 fighter and make all NATO military sanctions against Turkey be removed. Setting the condition of America to return Turkey to the list of production and purchase partners of the F-35 fighter is one of the strangest conditions imposed in the history of Ankara-Washington relations. – Washington and the condition announced by Victoria Nuland commented.

Ahmed Tashgatiren, one of the conservative analysts critical of Erdogan’s government, is one of the authors who wrote about this issue. Together, we review part of Tashgatirn’s article:

When our 2.5 billion dollars goes to waste

Do you know what a politician plays with? it’s obvious; With the thoughts of people who have as much memory as fish! Politicians know very well that people easily forget.

Let’s go back a little and review important events that were important until a few years ago, but now, We have forgotten them: in 2017, at the height of the heated relations between Ankara and Moscow, the contract to purchase the S-400 missile system from Russia worth 2.5 billion dollars was signed. At that time, Turkey gave 1 billion 125 million dollars in cash and 1 billion 375 million dollars in the form of project credit and mutual purchase. //newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/1402/11/13/1402111316203198829304684.png”/>

If you remember, in those days the US and NATO They warned us many times and said: “This deal will cost you and it costs money” etc.

But we ignored them and did our own thing! We have sharp tongues, especially if we are to stand against the West! The interesting thing is that we hit the Russian Sukhoi, the pilot was killed, everyone said that we should be afraid of Putin’s reaction, and many advised the government: no matter what happens, you have to win Putin’s heart!

It was in this atmosphere that the issue of buying S400 also found a special content connection with that event. Parallel to this event, on the other side of the front, our relationship with the United States and NATO allies was strained, and the negotiations for the purchase of the Western Patriot missile were proceeding slowly. and in the field of fighting terrorism, it not only ignores the sensitivity of Turkey, but also hinders us. We were angry with America and the West in general, and for this reason, the opening dialogue with the East was also taken into consideration, and as if in that space, we tried to buy a missile system from Russia, as a sign of Turkey’s distance from the West and getting closer to East, be considered.

Many in Ankara would like Westerners to imagine that Turkey is surfing the US-China and US-Russia disputes. But new events happened and we realized that no… really buying missiles from Russia is not without consequences and it cost us.

Including:

1. We were a partner in the production of hundreds of parts of the advanced F-35 fighter, and the Turkish flag was emblazoned on the body of the fighter alongside the flags of other members of the production group, and as a partner and supplier, we invested 1.25 billion dollars in it. we did. But very easily we were removed from the project and the supply of the advanced F-35 fighter to Turkey has been suspended.

2. We were and are NATO members. But… our allies in NATO implemented a kind of secret sanctions against Turkey. Meanwhile, the issue of Russia and Ukraine was raised. NATO coordinated with Ukraine, we did well. But NATO did not see this.

3. We reached a point where we had to say: Very well! Now that you don’t give F35s, give some F16s! Anyway, we are also members of NATO. Several times in a row, negotiation, negotiation. Many times they passed the ball from the government to the Congress. Joe Biden refused to meet with us. They wanted to rub our noses in the dirt. We also said that we are not ready to tolerate such a thing. /13/1402111316183197229304674.jpg”/>

4. The subject of Sweden and Finland’s membership in NATO was raised. America – NATO want to encircle Russia from above and include these two Baltic countries. Everyone accepted and waited for Türkiye’s decision. We brought up the issue of F-16 there, and personally I don’t know if we can get F-16 or not? We get what we want. But there is still an atmosphere of “reluctance” on the American side. The government has requested and now the approval of Congress is also necessary. I don’t know if the anti-Turkish lobbyists will get in the way or not. But now they are saying something new and saying, if you throw away the S-400s, maybe the F-35 process will start again!

Now the question is: what to do with the S-400s? ? What to do with the 2 billion dollars that went up in smoke? More importantly, what will happen to our relations with Russia?

Our governments should answer and tell the people, was it foreseen from the beginning that the policy of buying S-400 is a Is the decision defensible and sustainable? These questions were raised while Erdogan is going to go to Cairo and meet Abdel Fattah Sisi on Valentine’s Day!

Sisi! Do you remember what Erdogan said about him? In the municipal elections in 2019, Erdogan told his supporters: “Whoever does not vote for Benali Yildirim in the Istanbul elections, has voted for Abdel Fattah Sisi”.

In fact Erdogan considered Sisi a symbol of evil and cruelty because he overthrew his close friend, Mohamed Morsi. It seems that Netanyahu has replaced Sisi in the upcoming elections, and Erdogan is already saying: “The opposition is pro-Israel.” There is no one to say, a calculating man! It was you who took the initiative to normalize relations with Israel and met with Netanyahu in New York!

Now we are going to normal relations with Sissy! I guess the Egyptians will show diplomatic courtesy and not repeat our old statements. We don’t want that from our politicians anyway…remembering the $2.5 billion cost of the S-400, addressing the ups and downs of relations with the US, or bringing up what was said about Sisi are examples. How much we are caught in the misunderstanding of politics.

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