Hellenic Caucus warns Trump against sale of F-35 jets to Turkey

The bipartisan enactment of the Congressional Caucus connected Hellenic Issues warned the US medication connected Monday astir the consequences of immoderate merchantability of F-35 combatant jets to Turkey, up of the US president’s gathering with his Turkish counterpart connected Thursday.

Representatives Gus Bilirakis (Republican), Chris Pappas (Democrat), Nicole Malliotakis (Republican, and Dina Titus (Democrat) stated that immoderate merchantability of the F-35s would acceptable a atrocious precedent, while noting that the Turkish president’s argumentation of violating US instrumentality by maintaining Russian rocket systems should not beryllium rewarded.

“Upholding CAATSA sanctions is not lone a substance of ineligible compliance but a indispensable step to support American defence assets and reaffirm the US committedness to accountability and regularisation of instrumentality successful planetary relations,” the US lawmakers said successful their associated statement.

“Rewarding Erdogan’s authorities without meaningful changes successful behaviour would acceptable a unsafe precedent and weaken the credibility of US overseas policy. The United States indispensable stand steadfast successful defending its laws, its alliances, and the planetary order.”

They said that Turkey was rightfully removed from the programme successful 2019 pursuing its acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 rocket defence systems, which is simply a wide violation of US instrumentality under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

“President Erdogan’s determination to prosecute subject collaboration with the Russian Federation, contempt Turkey’s NATO obligations, straight undermines the information of US defence technology and poses a menace to the strategic integrity of allied defence cooperation,” they continued, adding that the continued possession of the S-400 system while seeking entree to F-35 combatant jets “risks exposing delicate US subject capabilities to Russian intelligence, eroding allied trust, and jeopardizing the improvement of next-generation subject platforms.”

Beyond the ineligible aspects, the lawmakers pointed to the authoritarianism of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, noting it has “consistently demonstrated a disregard for planetary norms and antiauthoritarian principles—from crackdowns connected property state and governmental dissent, to assertive subject actions successful the regions that person drawn planetary condemnation.”