Posted on 05/26/2018 9:15:04 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
A U.S. Senate committee passed a $716 billion defense policy bill on Thursday, including a measure to prevent Turkey from purchasing Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets.
The amendment to the National Defense Authorisation Act, from Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Senator Thom Tillis, would remove Turkey from the F-35 program over its detention of U.S. citizen Andrew Brunson, Shaheen’s office said.
Brunson, a Christian pastor who may be jailed for up to 35 years, has denied terrorism and spying charges in a Turkish court this month. He has been in pre-trial detention since 2016.
It also faults NATO ally Turkey for its agreement with Russia in December to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries. Ankara wants the system to boost its defense capabilities amid threats from Kurdish and Islamist militants at home and conflicts across its borders in Syria and Iraq.
According to Shaheen’s office, the intention to purchase the Russian system is sanctionable under U.S. law.
“There is tremendous hesitancy (about) transferring sensitive F35 planes and technology to a nation who has purchased a Russian air defense system designed to shoot these very planes down,” said Senator Shaheen.
Relations between Ankara and Washington have been strained over a host of issues in recent months, including U.S. policy in Syria and a number of legal cases against Turkish and U.S. nationals being held in the two countries.
This comes as Congressman Brad Sherman, also called on the US State Department to block the sale of F-35’s to Turkey saying, “As to Turkey, I would hope that the administration would oppose the sale and prevent the sale of the F-35s. They are not a weapon to be used against terrorists, they are a weapon to be used against Greece. And I hope the State Department would at least be neutral should Congress consider, as we are considering, the remembrance of the millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac victims of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the last century.”
Turkey has said it would retaliate if the United States enacted a law halting weapons sales to the country.
Turkey plans to buy more than 100 of the F-35 jets, and has had talks with Washington about the purchase of Patriot missiles.
The NDAA is several steps from becoming law. The House of Representatives passed its version of the legislation earlier on Thursday. The Senate must still pass its version of the bill and the two versions must be reconciled before a final compromise bill can come up for a vote in both the House and Senate later this year.
The sale of any more military technology must be denied to Erdogan the Islamist's Turkey.
Now, what? NATO?
I should have included the author and date:
15 hours ago by GCT Team
Why would we want to sell F-35s to the enemy?
Only if we controlled a self destruct button? NO there is no reason to do so. It is clear that Turkey is not compatible with the Goals of NATO. And they are a threat of extending Terrorism in the Middle East and the world.
This article is a bit self conflicting. The title in relation to the article is not clear.
Good decision. Let’s hope it goes all the way through. Selling these to Turkey now would be like selling F-14s to Iran back in the day.
Good. The Turks have shown they have no business with our latest stealth fighter.
Correct
Yes, this is only the first step. But the sooner that this is clearly conveyed to Erdogan the Islamist, the better.
He will blow up, but he does that daily.
Yeah. They should also pass legislation to prevent them from purchasing P-38 Lightning Fighters.
Islamic trade negotiation technique.
What are the Turks going to embargo for the US? Dried Turkish Apricots?
I honestly don’t dislike the Turkish people. I have no use for their cruelty and support for the Islamist Terrorists (Jihadi’s).
They still practice ethnic cleansing and will if left unchecked under Erdogan will again practice genocide.
SO. Here we are.
We should cut off all funding and military cooperation with Turkey until after they pull their invasion forces out of Cyprus, Syria and Iraq.
Absolutely.
Erdogan is corrupt and disloyal to NATO - he can’t be trusted with such vital technology.
Totally agree. On top of that, he will bring the destruction of Turkey and it will have spill over effects.
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Related threads
U.S. Senate defense bill would bar Turkey from buying F-35 jets
Turkey looking at buying Russian Su-57 fighter jets instead of US’ F-35’s - newspaper
Good. Now the House has to pass it and Trump sign it.
Good indeed.
Do we now know that Erdogan will be leaving NATO? Wait until June 24th?
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