Biden holds out the prospect of Erdoğan fighter jet delivery

Zoom Image

Turkish President Erdoğan, US counterpart Biden (at the NATO summit in Madrid in 2022): Do not link the issue of F-16 with Sweden's accession to NATO

Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP

Turkey has been blocking Sweden's accession to NATO for months. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wants to bring both sides together again for talks before a NATO summit in Lithuania. Now US President Joe Biden has also intervened – and spoke on the phone with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

They had agreed to a bilateral meeting in Vilnius, the Turkish presidential office announced. Erdoğan thanked Biden in the phone call for supporting the demand for US F-16 fighter jets. At the same time, he made it clear that he did not think it was right to link the issue of F-16 with Sweden's accession to NATO.

Turkey is currently blocking the Scandinavian country's admission to the military alliance. Sweden has taken steps in the right direction with the amendment of the terror legislation, Erdoğan told Biden. At the same time, however, he accused Sweden of allowing demonstrations glorifying "terrorism" and thus undoing the progress, according to the statement. Recently, a Koran was burned during a demonstration in Sweden, which caused outrage in the Muslim world.

In the conversation, Biden once again expressed his desire to admit Sweden to NATO as soon as possible, the White House said.

Fighter jets as blockade solvers

The U.S. President had previously commented in a CNN interview on the struggle for Sweden's NATO membership. He made it clear that he sees the fighter jets as a means to solve the blockade: Turkey is striving to modernize its F-16 fleet and Greece is also asking for help, he said. "So, frankly, I'm trying to put together something like a consortium to strengthen NATO in terms of the military capability of both Greece and Turkey, and allow Sweden to get in." Biden added that it was not done yet, but he was optimistic.

The U.S. government has repeatedly emphasized in the past that it supports Turkey's efforts to modernize its F-16 fleet, but that this is not a quid pro quo for the country's approval of NATO's northward expansion.

Biden also addressed the Koran burnings in Sweden. Turkey criticises the Swedish security apparatus for failing to prevent such incidents. The Koran burnings put Erdoğan "in a difficult position at home," Biden said. They're working to prevent that," he added, without specifying whether he was referring to Sweden.

mrc/dpa