According to Axius, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded compensation for the material damage and the return of the country’s money during the termination of the deal to buy the F-35 fighter jet by the United States.
In this regard, Erdogan has asked the United States to return $ 1.4 billion of his country’s money to Ankara after leaving Ankara out of the F-35 fighter project.
“We have paid $ 1.4 billion,” the Turkish president told US officials about his country’s exclusion from the F-35 fighter project, according to news sources. What about this money? We did not get this money easily. They either have to give us our planes or return our money.
Erdogan’s stance comes months after a Pentagon official said Washington had officially notified Ankara of its expulsion from production of a fifth-generation F-35 fighter jet.
Earlier in 2019, it was reported that the United States had excluded Turkey from the multinational program due to the purchase of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia, and suspended the delivery of these fighters to Ankara and its pilot training.
Turkey, along with the United States, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Norway, participated in the “F-35 Fighter” program, and under this agreement, each of the countries involved in the construction of this fighter will receive parts. These parts are eventually controlled and assembled in three parts of the world, and besides the United States, there are two other production lines in Italy and Japan.
Turkey had demanded the purchase of 100 advanced F-35 fighter jets. The first fighters were delivered to Turkey in 2018, and Turkish pilots were trained, and then five more of these fighters were delivered to Turkey, but Ankara’s decision to buy the S400 defense system from Russia prompted the American side to deliver the aircraft. The fighters refused to go to Ankara and removed the Turkish pilots from the training program to fly this type of fighter.
