Menendez maintains hold on Türkiye F-16 jets despite Sweden NATO deal

A key senator is refusing to lift his longstanding hold on the sale of 40 Block 70 F-16 fighter jets to Türkiye despite the Biden administration’s announcement last week that it wants to move forward with the deal. The $20 billion potential sale also includes 80 modernisation kits.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the sale would proceed last week after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced at the NATO summit in Lithuania that  Türkiye would ratify Sweden’s NATO accession bid. But Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., told Defense News on July 18 that he continues to use his position as Foreign Relations Committee chairman to block the sale.

“I’ve always said that the ratification of Sweden, which should naturally occur, is not the sine qua non of why I would lift the hold on F-16s,” Menendez said. “There’s bigger issues than just that alone.”

The US State Department has held conversations with Menendez on his F-16 hold in recent weeks. Menendez told Reuters last week that if the Biden administration “can find a way to ensure that Türkiye’s aggression against its neighbours ceases, which there has been a lull the last several months, that’s great but there has to be a permanent reality.”

Menendez’s home state of New Jersey boasts the sixth-largest Greek American population in the US and the fourth-largest Armenian American population.