Washington booted Ankara of its F-35 fighter programme
\n ANKARA
\nBritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer said London has signed an agreement to sell Eurofighter jets to NATO member Turkey in a 10-year deal worth nearly $11 billion after talks on Monday in Ankara with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
\n\u201cThis is a really significant deal, because it\u2019s \u00a38 billion ($10.7 billion) worth of orders… these are jobs that will last for 10 years, making the (Eurofighter) Typhoons, so really big for our country,\u201d he said.
\nBritain\u2019s defence ministry described the order, which would involve 20 Eurofighters, as the \u201cbiggest fighter jet deal in a generation\u201d, saying it would strengthen Turkey\u2019s combat capabilities and bolster \u201cNATO\u2019s strength in a key region\u201d.
\n\u201cThis is the southeast flank of NATO, and so having that capability locked in with the United Kingdom is really important for NATO,\u201d Starmer said in the Turkish capital.
\nErdogan hailed the agreement as a new symbol of defence cooperation with Britain.
\n\u201cWe regard this… as a new symbol of the strategic relations between our two close allies,\u201d he said after the pair signed the agreement.
\nBut the high-profile visit was clouded by a spying scandal which erupted late on Sunday, after a Turkish court charged Istanbul\u2019s jailed opposition mayor with espionage over his links to a Turkish businessman allegedly spying for Britain.
\nStarmer arrived with his Defence Minister John Healey and Air Chief Marshall Harv Smyth, the head of Britain\u2019s air force, who were welcomed by their Turkish counterparts, Turkey\u2019s defence ministry said.
\nTurkey has been looking to modernise its air force and has been pushing to acquire 40 of the European-made fighter aircraft, which are jointly produced by Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
\nSpeaking on condition of anonymity, a Turkish official told AFP Britain would hand over a number of jets on Monday, without saying how many.
\nAnalysts said it would likely be two.
\n\u201cTurkey and the Eurofighter is quite the saga,\u201d Aaron Stein, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told AFP, saying Ankara had turned down an offer to join the European consortium building the jets, focusing instead on the US fighter jet programme.
\n\u201cAnkara was invited to join the consortium or become an equal member a few times but they chose the F-35,\u201d he said.
\nAfter Washington booted Ankara out of its F-35 fighter programme in 2019 over its purchase of an S-400 Russian surface-to-air missile defence system, Turkey turned its attention to Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington booted Ankara of its F-35 fighter programme ANKARA British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said London has signed an agreement to sell Eurofighter jets to NATO member Turkey in a 10-year deal worth nearly $11 billion after talks on Monday in Ankara with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. \u201cThis is a really significant deal, because it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-511342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n