ANKARA: Turkiye has reduced its planned $23 billion acquisition of an F-16 fighter jet package from the United States, scrapping the purchase of 79 modernization kits for its existing fleet, Defense Minister Yasar Guler said late on Tuesday.
\nNATO member Turkiye earlier this year secured a deal to procure 40 F-16 fighter jets and 79 modernization kits for its existing F-16s from the United States, after a long-delayed process.
\n\u201cAn initial payment has been made for the procurement of F-16 Block-70. A payment of $1.4 billion has been made. With this, we will buy 40 F-16 Block-70 Viper and we were going to buy 79 modernization kits,\u201d Guler told a parliamentary hearing.
\n\u201cWe gave up on this 79. This is why we gave up: Our Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS) facilities are capable of carrying out this modernization on their own, so we deferred to them,\u201d he said.
\nThe sale of the 40 new Lockheed Martin F-16 jets and ammunition for them will cost Turkiye some $7 billion, Guler added.
\nTurkiye placed its order in October 2021, two years after the United States kicked the country out of the fifth-generation F-35 fighter jet program over its procurement of a Russian missile defense system.
\nTurkiye wants to re-join the F-35 program and buy 40 new F-35 jets, Guler also said.
\nTurkiye is one of the largest operators of F-16s, with its fleet made up of more than 200 older Block 30, 40 and 50 models.
\nAnkara is also interested in buying Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, built by a consortium of Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.
\nIt is also developing its own combat aircraft, KAAN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA: Turkiye has reduced its planned $23 billion acquisition of an F-16 fighter jet package from the United States, scrapping the purchase of 79 modernization kits for its existing fleet, Defense Minister Yasar Guler said late on Tuesday. NATO member Turkiye earlier this year secured a deal to procure 40 F-16 fighter jets and 79 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-446024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n