Biden and Erdogan Discuss Purchase of American F-16s and Sweden’s NATO Membership

The topics were discussed during a telephone conversation when Biden congratulated Erdogan on his victory in the presidential election held on Sunday.

“I talked to Erdogan. I congratulated Erdogan. He still wants to work on something on the F-16. I told him that we want to deal with Sweden, so let’s do it,” Biden told reporters before leaving Bely home in Delaware.

The American president added that the parties will contact on these issues later.

“We’re going to talk more about this next week,” Biden said.

At the same time, Erdogan’s statement about the call was short and vague. It says that the presidents agreed to deepen cooperation in all aspects of their bilateral ties, the importance of which “has grown even more in the face of regional and global problems.”

Ankara wants to buy American F-16s

Turkey tried to buy $20 billion worth of F-16 fighter jets from the US, but the sale was “frozen” due to objections from the US Congress.

However, the Biden administration has repeatedly stated that it supports the deal.

Türkiye does not support Sweden’s NATO membership

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in 2022, abandoning their longstanding policy of military non-alignment amid a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Applications from Stockholm and Helsinki must be approved by all member states of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Turkey ratified Finland’s accession to NATO at the end of March, while continuing to object to Sweden. Thus, Ankara claims that members of organizations that Turkey considers terrorists are hiding in Stockholm. We add that Hungary also has not yet approved the application of Sweden.

Washington wants the issue of Sweden’s accession to NATO to be resolved before the summit of the leaders of the Alliance in Lithuania, which will be held in July.