Statement of Concern Regarding Negotiations with Erdogan Regime: Upholding CAATSA sanctions is not only a matter of legal compliance but a necessary step to protect American defense assets

Washington, D.C. – Earlier today, the bipartisan enactment of the Congressional Caucus connected Hellenic Issues — Representatives Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Chris Pappas (D-NH), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Dina Titus (D-NV) — issued the pursuing statement:

“The United States indispensable beryllium precise cautious erstwhile engaging successful negotiations peculiarly arsenic it relates to discussions surrounding Turkey’s imaginable reentry into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

Turkey was rightfully removed from the programme successful 2019 pursuing its acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 rocket defence system—a wide usurpation of U.S. instrumentality nether 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 U.S. defence exertion and poses a menace to the strategical integrity of allied defence cooperation.

The continued possession of the S-400 strategy portion seeking entree to F-35 combatant jets risks exposing delicate U.S. subject capabilities to Russian intelligence, eroding allied trust, and jeopardizing the improvement of next-generation subject platforms.

Beyond this usurpation of U.S. law, Erdogan’s authorities 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.

Upholding CAATSA sanctions is not lone a substance of ineligible compliance but a indispensable measurement to support American defence assets and reaffirm the U.S. committedness to accountability and regularisation of instrumentality successful planetary relations.

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