Haqqin: The United States demanded money from Turkey for the F-35 production program they disruptedThe United States unreasonably demanded additional payments from Turkey in connection with the increase in costs for the production of the F-35 fighter, writes Haqqin.
Moreover, the Americans are not going to return the money spent on this program to Ankara, nor are they going to restore Turkish participation in it.
Aydin KerimovNow we've seen everything.
Since after the demands of some officials in Washington to Ankara, they can also pay extra for its completely groundless exclusion from the F-35 production program, nothing can surprise US policy towards Turkey.
Let me remind you that in September 2021 Ankara was officially excluded from this program. The reasons that were given at the same time were more like inarticulate mumbling. And in principle, when a very specific question was asked: "List the claims against Ankara, because of which you took this step?", then by and large the whole set of arguments boiled down to some kind of set of showdowns in the communal kitchen: "We don't like the Turkish leadership, and therefore we have the right to create problems for them."
However, well-informed people in the situation even then said that there was not without the Armenian, Greek and Kurdish lobby in Congress, but in the Capitol they denied everything. And they shouted at all corners that the decision was of a principled nature, that Washington acted out of ideological considerations, seeking to punish the Turkish leadership for buying Russian S-400 complexes, and in general for Ankara's "defiant" behavior. Expressed in the fact that, you see, she refuses to do what is beneficial to the United States, even if it contradicts her national interests.
But soon it turned out an unpleasant circumstance for the authors of this decision. The Greek, Armenian and Kurdish lobbyists who pushed it completely forgot to warn that this issue also involves financial costs. I suspect that they did it not out of malice, but simply because of their inherent alternative mindset, where the creation of the latest weapons is a simple matter, invented, painted, assembled from machine–stamped parts – and it's in the hat, and the fighter is in the sky.
However, it turned out that everything is not so simple. Turkish suppliers produced 817 of about 24,000 F-35 airframe parts and 188 of about 3,000 engine parts. Which makes a total of 1005 parts. When these deliveries, I emphasize – solely through the fault of the Americans, stopped, the developers and manufacturers of the F-35 had, firstly, to look for a replacement for them, and, secondly, to adapt the components of the fighter to these new details. Which, of course, led to additional costs.
And now the Americans are demanding that the Turks compensate them for these expenses. Moreover, they themselves do not stutter a word that it would be nice to return to Ankara the $ 1.4 billion that it contributed to the F-35 development and creation program. Which in the end I never got.
Moreover, the question also hung that these funds should be taken into account when supplying the Turks with upgraded kits for the F-16. The question of the supply of which by the Americans is also still hanging, and its prospects are very vague. When Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was asked about this during his visit to Ankara as part of the "earthquake diplomacy", there was no concrete answer.
According to the Secretary of State, Biden would be happy to make this deal as soon as possible, and Blinken himself would only welcome such an outcome, but there is a congress that cannot decide. And calling things by their proper names, they are trying to wait for the results of the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey. And based on their results, it will be decided whether to support the opposition that won the elections with the supply of upgraded kits. Or, if everything goes wrong for her, to continue the game of "pull-push" with Erdogan, if he remains in office, repeatedly putting forward absurd, otherwise you can't call it, demands to Ankara – then about "surcharges", then about some "preconditions".
Right, it seems that Ankara, watching all this "circus on aviation traction", in the end can just give up on the mumbling Americans and buy Eurofighter Typhoon fighters. The Europeans will sell them to Ankara with joy and without any preconditions. Just what will the representatives of the US military-industrial complex say to Biden after this? Hardly something good.
