What’s at stake in Turkey’s demand from Washington for F-16s?
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with his US counterpart Antony Blinken on Thursday as part of a US-Turkey “Strategic Mechanism” relating to a deal on F-16s. The two discussed NATO, Ukraine and Syria. Meanwhile in Congress, several key US lawmakers expressed objections to the push to sell Ankara more weapons.
This is while the US is also interested in selling Greece F-35 fighter jets, which could be a major game-changer in the Eastern Mediterranean and increase the important role of Athens in the region.
The problem in Washington is that Ankara has been an unreliable partner, and has often worked against US interests and the interests of western democracies in general. Turkey has been working to prevent Sweden and Finland, two democracies, from joining NATO.
As part of Ankara’s blackmail campaign, it demanded Sweden deport and extradite dozens of dissidents and critics of Turkey, people who tend to be refugees and asylum seekers. In Turkey, opposition members have been jailed for simply expressing criticism of the ruling AKP party and most independent media have been shut down or turned into pro-government media.
THE SALE OF F-16S is becoming another way for Ankara to make demands for more weapons and can be seen as a tradeoff for dropping its opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. NATO’s founders likely never anticipated a situation in which a NATO member would become a dictatorship and then prevent democracies from joining. All of this puts the US in a bind.
The current difficulty is that while some members of Congress have grown tired of Ankara’s threats, officials in various parts of the government see Ankara as a necessary evil, a misbehaving ally that is needed nonetheless.
In this policy analysis, Ankara is important because of its large economy and its “geopolitical” position – situated between Europe, Iran and Russia. If Turkey were located where Brazil is located this wouldn’t be an issue.
The other issue that pro-Ankara commentators raise is that they believe the US has alienated Ankara by backing Kurdish forces in Syria who have been working with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against ISIS in Syria.
These Kurdish allies, as well as the numerous Arabs, Christians and other groups who work with the SDF, have been key to stability in eastern Syria. By contrast, Ankara has claimed to back other former Syrian rebel groups who it co-opted and which it has used to fight Kurds since 2016.
TURKEY’S GOAL was to redirect the Syrian rebellion, enable the capture of Aleppo by Assad, and shift the Syrian rebels to fight Kurds. Ankara’s overall goal in Syria is to neutralize the SDF and SNA (the former rebels)
and then sign a deal with Damascus.
Turkey has held recent meetings in Russia with Syrian regime members, meetings that Iran has supported. Together, Iran, Turkey and Russia have worked to weaken the US role in Syria. For some pro-Turkey American commentators, the US can upend this situation by reducing ties with the SDF, enable the ethnic cleansing of Kurdish regions and then work with Turkey against Iran.
Ankara has a problematic relationship with Russia, another issue at stake. While Turkey provided Ukraine with Bayraktar drones before the war, since the war began last February, Turkey has provided nothing, even as NATO and European countries have rushed to arm Ukraine.
Instead, Ankara has worked directly with Russia, enabling it to circumvent sanctions, reportedly
hosting Russian oligarchs, and working on energy deals. It follows a pattern created pattern with Iran under sanctions. Turkey plays both sides; it is a key part of the Ukraine grain deal, but also works with Russia. Turkey wants F-16s, but it also has acquired Russia’s S-400 system.
One last piece of the puzzle is Ankara’s reconciliation attempts with Israel, all to obtain better deals in Washington. Turkey had close friends in the US administration during the Trump era and exploited this relationship to try to get the US to leave Syria and to threaten Israel.
Turkey was one of the leading opponents of the US Embassy move to Jerusalem and of the Abraham Accords. Now, Ankara has shifted its rhetoric. Instead of openly hosting Hamas leaders, trying to isolate Israel diplomatically and comparing
Israel to Nazi Germany, as Turkey’s leader did at the UN in 2019, Ankara is now courting Israel. This policy intensified over the last year while Netanyahu was out of office.
TURKEY HAS TRIED to work with pro-Israel voices in the US to wring concessions. For many years, authoritarian regimes, including Turkey, have believed that they can win favors in Washington by working with pro-Israel groups and voices and pretending they will work with Israel, if only pro-Israel voices go to bat for them on the hill. Two decades ago, for instance, Ankara sought to influence some groups to deny the Armenian genocide in exchange for Ankara working more closely with Israel. Two decades later, the old pattern is back – trying to trade ties with Israel for concessions.
As part of this drive, Ankara sells itself as being a major economic power situated to help Israel export energy and cut trade deals. While Washington also wants to sell Greece F-35s and work with Greece, some of the old talking points in policy-making portray Greece as less important than Turkey. Unlike Ankara, Greece is a small democracy that is supportive of NATO and has positive relations with many countries. Ankara’s overall method of doing policy is to use threats to achieve goals and then work with adversaries of the US.
It’s unclear if Ankara can cut more deals in Washington and receive its F-16s. In the past, Ankara has used F-16s primarily to target Kurds and minorities in Syria and Iraq, bombing areas that are vulnerable and poor, such as where Yazidis live and where Christian and Kurdish minorities live.
Some key US lawmakers may be all that stands in the way of Ankara getting more warplanes which it may then use against US anti-ISIS partners in Syria. It’s also unclear how long the current Turkey-Israel reconciliation will last.
Ankara is currently encouraging its state media to bash Sweden, but it may be only a matter of time before its backing for Hamas and anti-Israel screeds begin again. What’s at stake in DC as Ankara seeks more warplanes is whether the US believes appeasing Ankara will keep it from another invasion in Syria and whether this kind of policy has achieved any goals over the last decade. Considering Ankara’s track record there’s little evidence that much has changed.