MESOP MIDEAST WATCH : DIRTY DEALS : Turkey’s F-16 deal proves hard sell in US Congress  

AL MONITOR  19-1-23 – “We expect the approval.” That was the message Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu delivered to Washington on Wednesday as the Biden administration prepares to seek Congress’ greenlight for a potential $20 billion dollar sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

“The administration should not waste such an important deal between two allies just because one person or a few people are blocking it. It should not bow down,” Cavusoglu told reporters after his meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The possible sale of F-16s has been met with resistance in Congress, where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are concerned by Ankara’s slide toward authoritarianism under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and its refusal to approve Finland and Sweden’s NATO bids.

Last week, the State Department informally notified US lawmakers it would seek their approval for the prospective sale, which would reportedly include 40 new F-16s and 79 upgrade kits for Turkey’s existing fleet of the Lockheed Martin-made jets. The proposed arms sale, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is in the informal review period, during which members of Congress can request briefings from the administration and raise any objections.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez, the top Senate Democrat with oversight on arms sales, has voiced strong opposition to the proposal and could place an informal hold on the multibillion dollar package.

In a statement late Friday, the New Jersey Democrat vowed not to approve the F-16s “until Erdogan ceases his threats, improves his human rights record at home — including by releasing journalists and political opposition — and begins to act like a trusted ally should.”

Menendez is hardly alone in his opposition, but some lawmakers could be swayed if Turkey ratifies Sweden and Finland’s NATO bids, which it has so far resisted doing over concerns the two Nordic countries are harboring Kurdish separatists and others Ankara deems “terrorists.”

“If Cavusoglu has told Blinken that Ankara will ratify, and Blinken has his word that Turkey will move on this, then I think the administration might go to bat and say, ‘look, this is a done deal,'” said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute.

But, he added, “Even then I’m not holding my breath on Menendez lifting his veto.”

Support for Turkey has waned on Capitol Hill, including over its deepening ties to Russia, continued provocations against Greece and multiple military campaigns against US-backed Kurdish forces in northeast Syria.

Sinam Mohamad, the Washington envoy for the Syrian Democratic Forces’ political arm, told The Takeaway she feared the fighter jets “will be used against the people of North and East Syria and the US allied-SDF leadership.”

The administration’s consultations with Congress come as Turkey gears up to hold crucial presidential and parliamentary elections in mid-May, as Nazlan Ertan reports. Erdogan is seeking to extend his 20-year grip on power in a vote that some analysts warn could be neither free nor fair.

“Erdogan might pull a January 6,” said Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey program director at the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington. “How would [the Biden administration] feel if in just three months, Turkey has its first unfair election in decades … and they have sold the F-16 to Turkey just months before?”