Turkish Vatan party calls for Ankara to revoke US F-16 sale request

• 

Turkish Patriotic Party (Vatan) chairman Dogu Perincek on Monday called on the authorities in Ankara to withdraw its request to purchase F-16 fighter jets from the United States.

The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act constraining the impending transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. The amendment requires there to be assurances on behalf of the US president that the aircraft will not be used for unauthorized territorial overflights in Greece.

"The persistence in buying F-16s from the US/NATO, which is threatening our country, runs counter to our national pride and interests. The policy 'you did not give us our F-35s, at least sell us the F-16s' has failed. No one has the right to put our state in this position," Turkish newspaper Aydınlık quoted Perincek as saying.

It is NATO that poses a threat to Turkey from Greece, the eastern Mediterranean, Syria, and northern Iraq, therefore no threat from Ankara should have been expected, he added.

"Isn't it obvious that we cannot use the weapons we obtained from them?" Perincek asked. "The request for F-16s should be withdrawn, with our needs to be met at the expense of our true friends in Asia until a national combat aircraft is completed."

Turkey and the United States have long had issues when it comes to the latter's fighter jets programs. In 2019, Washington suspended Ankara's participation in its F-35 program over Ankara's purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system and later completely removed it. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan 2021 announced that the US suggested that Turkey procure the fourth generation of the F-16 fighter jets instead of the fifth generation of F-35s.

Erdogan’s Spokesperson Fahrettin Altun said earlier this year that Washington’s removal of Turkey from the F-35 program in 2019 was "unlawful". The US rejected the delivery of the promised aircraft after Turkey refused its demand to scrap buying S-400s.

Altun also shot down an idea raised by Washington that Ankara should transfer its Russian S-400 systems to Ukraine in exchange for the F-35 fighter jets his country had been denied.

The US Congress has yet to approve the F-16 deal, with the situation being complicated by reports that Greece was pressuring the US to force Washington not to sell upgraded F-16 combat aircraft to Turkey, citing its own security concerns.

Perincek stated earlier that the party intended to recommend to parliament that the Turkish government withdraws from NATO. He also argued that the policy against the alliance is important for the country's economic future.

As thousands of signatures were gathered in more than a hundred provinces and regions, Vatan Party Secretary-General Ozgur Bursli declared last Monday the beginning of a widespread campaign to persuade Ankara to leave NATO in Turkey's major cities. Bursli noted that the number of Turkish people protesting NATO was steadily growing.

NATO had been actively attempting to isolate Russia since the beginning of its operation in Ukraine. However, Turkey, since the start, balanced a relationship between the two great powers based on its interests with both. The country has been a member of NATO since 18 February 1952, and yet it has had a multitude of fruitful agreements with both Russia and China at times when the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance had its deep feuds with the two.