ANKARA, July 10 (Reuters) – Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that Turkey hopes to achieve a result on lifting U.S. sanctions and its desire to purchase F-35 fighter jets soon, adding there should be no defence industry restrictions between allies.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who visited Ankara this week for a NATO Summit, announced on Tuesday that he would lift U.S. sanctions imposed on Turkey over its purchase of Russian S-400 defence missile systems.
Speaking to state broadcaster TRT Haber, Fidan said there was political will from both Ankara and Washington on removing the sanctions, and that the relevant ministers were working to resolve the issue.
In 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on Turkey under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) over its acquisition of the S-400s. It also removed Ankara from the F-35 stealth fighter jet programme. The U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring Turkey to end possession of the S-400s in order to rejoin the F-35 programme.
Fidan said that there were two matters to be resolved in Turkey-U.S. relations that are subject to U.S. legislation.
“CAATSA is one of them. The issue of the F-35 jets is another… God willing, we will reach a conclusion soon; in other words, I do not think there will be any problems in this regard,” Fidan said in his remarks broadcast on TRT.
Two sources told Reuters this week that Trump was expected to throw his support behind the potential sale of F-35s during the visit to Ankara. Trump said he “has not totally made up his mind” on the issue.
Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet reported on Friday that Turkey could announce it would resell the S-400s to one of the Gulf nations as soon as Friday in order to persuade the U.S. to sell F-35 jets to Ankara.
Asked on Friday about the media report and whether Turkey had sought Russia’s permission for such a deal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had been in contact with Ankara over what he described as an “extremely sensitive issue”.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Daren Butler and Peter Graff)
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