US President Donald Trump’s visit to Ankara for a NATO summit could help secure the purchase of dozens of fighter jet engines from Turkey, but will not resolve the F-35 dispute that has soured ties, analysts say.
The July 7-8 summit, which is being organized by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will bring together leaders from the 32 member states of the military alliance.
Last month, Trump promised to make Erdogan “very happy” when asked about Turkey seeking to provide F110 jet engines and readmission to the F-35 fighter jet program.
Analysts said this would likely mean the release of fighter jet engines that Turkey wants to use in its flagship KAAN fighter jet project.
“It is likely to be the green light for the F110 GE engines for the KAAN fighter jet, about 40 of them. There had been obstacles to that supply and most likely they are now being lifted,” Sinan Ulgen, director of Istanbul-based think tank Edam, told AFP.
“Turkey has produced several prototypes flying with the F110 engine, but has been waiting for the supply of additional engines to increase the number of KAAN platforms,” he said.
The KAAN is a twin-engine stealth fighter being developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) to replace the Turkish Air Force’s F-16 fleet as Ankara seeks to join the exclusive club of nations producing fifth-generation fighter jets, notably the US, China and Russia.
Although Turkey will eventually fit the fighter with its domestically produced engine — the F110s without stealth capabilities — that project is still in the preliminary design stage, Defense Minister Yasar Guler said in September.
Turkey received a first batch of 10 F110s in September and talks with the US government to buy another 80 were “ongoing”, he said.
– Indigenous defense systems –
But that has been hampered by a lack of political permission related to Turkey’s 2017 purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defense system, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in September.
Angered, Washington excluded Turkey from its F-35 fighter jet program in 2019 and imposed CAATSA sanctions a year later, hampering Turkish defense projects and straining ties.
“The CAATSA issue must be resolved. The US must take steps for both the F-35 and the engines for the KAAN. The KAAN engines are currently awaiting approval in the US Congress,” Fidan said, his remarks raising eyebrows at home after Turkey had said the KAAN would be produced entirely domestically.
Ankara’s F-35 exclusion has forced it to refocus on self-sufficiency.
“Some argue that we should not buy the F-35 and invest that money in our fifth-generation fighter jet program. And this is exactly what is happening with President Trump’s decision to export jet engines,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, head of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara.
“Without these engines, Turkey cannot produce the KAAN aircraft.”
– F-35 lockdown drags on –
With a KAAN delivery date many years away, only Indonesia has placed an order, signing a $10 billion contract to buy 48 fighters, although the NATO summit could generate further interest, Ulgen said.
“Seeing the failure of the German-French FCAS initiative, there may be some interest. Spain may become a partner and there may also be interest from the Gulf… But there are more hurdles to overcome for it to become a credible offer on the international stage,” he said.
Experts expected little progress in the protracted F-35 dispute: For Congress to lift CAATSA sanctions, Ankara would have to get rid of the S-400 — but selling it to a third country would require Moscow’s approval, and returning it to the Russians was not on the cards.
“The US administration may want to put this matter behind it and sell some F-35s to Turkey, but that will go to Congress and reversing the congressional decision will not be easy,” said Professor Mustafa Aydin, an international relations expert at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.
But Matthew Bryza, a retired U.S. envoy and former senior White House and State Department official, said Trump could move to resolve the issue since the F-35 was an executive decision that he could easily overturn.
“President Trump can certainly declare that the S-400/F-35 dispute is over. It’s the CAATSA sanctions that require congressional action. Whether he can convince Congress to do that depends on how much political capital he’s willing to spend,” he told AFP of a move that could be “politically costly in Turkish and Armenian elections to Greek opponents.” diaspora.
