Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks with US Presidents Joe Biden, Russian Vladimir Putin and France Emmanuel Macron, and the three congratulated him on his re-election as president.

The Turkish presidency said the US president called President Erdogan to congratulate him on his re-election as president.

She added that the two presidents stressed the importance of the growing Turkish-US relations in facing regional and global challenges, and agreed to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in all fields.

For his part, the US president said that his Turkish counterpart reiterated to him Ankara's desire to buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States.

Biden, in a phone call with Erdogan congratulating him on his victory in Sunday's presidential election, said Washington wanted Ankara to drop its objection to Sweden's request to join NATO.

Biden told reporters before leaving the White House for Delaware: "I spoke to Erdogan and congratulated him, and he still wants some solution regarding the F-16. I told him we wanted to deal with Sweden, so let's end it. So we're going to get back in touch." "We'll talk more about that next week."

The consent of all NATO members is a condition for the accession of a new member. Turkey and Hungary have so far not agreed to Stockholm's request.

Turkey is seeking to buy $16 billion worth of F-20 fighter jets from the United States, but the sale has stalled due to congressional objections, despite the Biden administration's repeated statement that it supports the deal. Congressional reticence on the deal stems from its objection to what it says is Ankara's human rights record and Syria policy.

But Congress this year approved a much smaller $259 million package, including an upgrade to avionics software for Turkey's current fleet of F-16 fighter jets, days after Ankara ratified Finland's entry into NATO.


The Biden administration has consistently refused to confirm any "trade-off" between the deal and NATO enlargement, although Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in January that the U.S. side had made clear that Congress would view Ankara's approval of the enlargement favorably.

A source familiar with the discussions said the United States had previously told Turkey that it would be difficult to convince Congress to approve the F-16 deal if Ankara did not give the green light to Sweden.

Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year, abandoning long-standing policies of military non-alignment following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Turkey ratified Finland's NATO application in late March but continued to oppose Sweden's accession, saying Stockholm was harboring members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist in Turkey, and Hungary did not agree to Sweden's request.

Sweden joining NATO by mid-July, when the alliance is due to hold a summit in Lithuania, is among Washington's top priorities.

Call between Erdogan and Putin

The Kremlin said in a statement that President Vladimir Putin congratulated - in a phone call - his Turkish counterpart on winning the presidential elections, and stressed that this victory will open new horizons for expanding bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Ankara.

The statement stressed that Erdogan expressed to Putin his intention to continue bilateral work between the two countries on all current issues.

Russian President Vladimir #بوتين: I hope that the results of the #الانتخابات_الرئاسية in #تركيا will benefit the Turkish people.https://t.co/sUsz7gKLgv pic.twitter.com/xMsoZVkJyF

— Anadolu Arabia (@aa_Arabic) May 29, 2023

Erdogan and Macron hold telephone talks

In the same context, Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed, on Monday evening, bilateral relations between the two countries and regional issues.

This came in a phone call from the French president in which he congratulated Erdogan on his re-election as president of Turkey.

According to a statement issued by the Directorate of Communications of the Turkish presidency, Macron called President Erdogan, congratulated him on his re-election as president, and hoped that the election results would be beneficial to the Turkish people.

During the call, they discussed Turkish-French relations and regional issues.