Biden Asks Congress to Allow F-16 Sale to Turkey After NATO Deal

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden has urged congressional lawmakers to approve the sale of F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after that country agreed to allow Sweden’s entry into NATO.

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Biden wrote of his wish in a letter Wednesday to the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Biden had made Turkey’s approval of Sweden’s NATO membership a prerequisite for the sale of those jets, and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also linked the two issues. The Turkish parliament voted to accept Sweden’s accession on Tuesday, sending the measure back to Erdogan for his signature. That leaves Hungary as the lone holdout to the defense alliance’s northern enlargement.

Read More: Turkey Approves Sweden NATO Bid, Leaving Hungary as Holdout

Turkey has since 2021 sought to buy 40 Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16 Block 70 aircraft from the American company and 79 kits to modernize its fleet. Turkey wants to retire its F-4 jets and to upgrade F-16s as a stopgap measure until it can develop its own warplanes.

Biden’s letter to the representatives and senators was reported earlier by Reuters.

Sweden began the process of joining NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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