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The US president says he expects extra discussions subsequent week after a name to his Turkish counterpart, congratulating him on re-election.
US President Joe Biden has congratulated his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on his re-election as the 2 leaders additionally mentioned points like Turkey shopping for F-16 fighter jets and Sweden joining NATO.
In Monday’s cellphone trade, Erdogan repeated Ankara’s want to purchase the US-made plane, whereas Biden informed him Washington wished Ankara to drop its objection to Sweden turning into a member of the transatlantic navy alliance, in accordance with the president of the USA.
“I spoke to Erdogan. I congratulated Erdogan. He nonetheless desires to work on one thing on the F-16s. I informed him we wished a take care of Sweden, so let’s get that executed. And so we’ll be again in contact with each other,” Biden informed reporters on the White Home.
Requested if he anticipated any motion from Erdogan on Sweden’s NATO membership, Biden mentioned: “I raised that problem with him. We’re going to speak extra about it subsequent week.”
Sweden and Finland utilized for NATO membership final yr, abandoning long-held insurance policies of navy non-alignment following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Bids for membership have to be accredited by all NATO members. Finland joined the US-led alliance final month, however Sweden’s membership has been held up by objections from Turkey and Hungary. Turkey says Stockholm harbours members of armed teams it considers to be “terrorists”.
In the meantime, Turkey has sought to purchase $20bn price of F-16s and practically 80 modernisation kits from the US.
However the sale has been stalled because of objections from US Congress over Ankara’s refusal to inexperienced gentle to NATO enlargement, its human rights report and Syria coverage – regardless that the Biden administration has repeatedly mentioned it helps the sale.
A a lot smaller $259m package deal together with avionics software program upgrades for Turkey’s present fleet of F-16 fighter plane was cleared by US Congress earlier this yr, days after Turkey ratified Finland’s NATO accession.
The Biden administration has repeatedly rejected any assertion of any “quid professional quo” between the sale and the NATO enlargement, though Turkish International Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in January mentioned the US facet made it clear that approval of NATO bids can be considered positively by Congress.
Seeing Sweden be part of NATO by mid-July when the alliance is because of maintain a leaders’ summit in Lithuania is believed to be among the many high priorities for Washington.
Erdogan on Sunday won a run-off towards predominant opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, extending his 20-year rule right into a presidential third time period.
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