Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the United States is refusing to provide Ankara with US-made F-16 aircraft despite prepayment.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan complained that the United States never provided Turkey with F-16 aircraft. The Turkish president stressed that Ankara had made an advance payment but had not seen the US fighter jets.
“While, they don’t give us our F-16s even though we paid for them, they continue to send them to Greece with ammunition. Just because America is doing this, we probably have no reason to back down. We come to the neighbour next to us, sit down and talk,” Erdogan told reporters on the plane on his return from the UAE.
Recall, in July 2022, the United States House of Representatives amended the defence budget of the country. The amendment vetoed the White House administration’s sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey and components for their improvement until Ankara stops violating Greek airspace. Moreover, a little before this incident, Turkey was excluded from the F-35 fifth-generation fighter-bomber programme due to the acquisition of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems.