The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) are jointly launching a campaign to encourage U.S. Senators to block a planned sale of F-35 stealth fighters to Turkey.
This was reported this February on their websites and social media accounts. They published the "Action Alert" and invited thousands to send emails to their senators to stop the sale of F-35s to Turkey. In it, they stressed that "calls are the most effective way to influence the Senate on this issue."
According to the F-35 Lightning II Lockheed Martin website, Turkey has partnered with Lockheed Martin for more than 25 years, primarily on the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft and continued that partnership when it joined the F-35 Lightning II program during the System Development and Demonstration phase of the Joint Strike Fighter Program.As a partner, Turkish industries are considered as eligible to become suppliers to the global F-35 fleet for the life of the program. In this respect, industrial opportunities offered for the manufacture of F-35s for Turkish companies are expected to reach $12 billion in total. The participation scheme involves important Turkish public sector defense industry companies such as Aselsan, Roketsan, Havelsan and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI). There are also private sector companies involved as well.
Turkey's workshare inputs for the F-35 program include several structures of the F-35 aircraft, including the "central fuselage, wiring systems, on-board electronics and stand-off range surface-to-air munitions, including a variant of the Roketsan Stand-Off Missile (SOM-J)." It is reported that TAI delivered the first center fuselage to be used in the production of the first Turkish JSF/F-35 Lightning II aircraft in July 2017.
Previously, it was reported that Turkey expects to receive delivery of its first F-35 aircraft in 2019. Latest reports in the Turkish press indicated that Turkey is prepared to host the new F-35 fighter jets to be delivered this June and they will house them at an air base in Malatya province.
Recently it has been reported in the international press that three U.S. senators; James Lankford, Jeanne Shaheen, and Thom Tillis, as a bipartisan group, introduced a measure on April 26 to prevent the transfer of the F-35s to Turkey and to block Turkey's role as a maintenance depot for the aircraft. The same reports also mention that "Lankford and Shaheen, both on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, called for economic sanctions against Turkey last week as part of a fiscal 2019 spending bill if [Pastor and Protestant missionary Andrew] Brunson is not released."During the testimony of the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo before the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on May 23, State Representative Ted Poe, after impolitely referring Turkey as the "bad child of NATO," asked whether the U.S. State Department had made a decision about Turkey's purchase of F-35s.
To this question, Mr. Pompeo answered, "I have not." Answering another part of this question (Do you think Turkey should stay in NATO?), Pompeo reportedly said that "They [Turkey] have been an important NATO partner. We need their behavior to reflect the objectives of NATO, and that's what we're diligently working to do: to get them to rejoin NATO, in a way, with their actions, consistent with what we're trying to achieve in NATO. And not take actions that undermine its effort."
At this juncture, it should be firstly mentioned that Turkey is not a "partner" of NATO. Turkey is a member state of NATO and a NATO ally. Since Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952, there is no need for Turkey to "rejoin" NATO either legally or with its actions. It is worth mentioning that Mike Pompeo, a day after his remarks in the House of Representatives, testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 24, 2018. He, in response to a question by Sen. Johnny Isakson concerning his words on Turkey "rejoining" NATO, said that "I may have misspoken. Obviously [Turkey] is still member of NATO." In my mind, Pompeo's remarks might represent a Freudian slip.
Secondly, Turkey's involvement in the F-35 program is beyond a simple acquisition. Turkey is a program partner in the F-35's production. Moreover, Turkey is a NATO ally and power that is a major consumer of U.S. and European defense systems. Putting overt or covert restrictions on the sales of defense equipment to Turkey will definitely be, first and foremost, in total contradiction with the collective defense needs of NATO. Collective defense means that if one NATO ally is attacked, then all NATO allies are attacked.
For example, when terrorists attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, all NATO allies stood with the U.S. as though they had also been attacked. The U.S. has for years encouraged European countries to spend more money and to provide more for their own defense.
In total contradiction with this stance, Turkey's request to purchase capable defense systems from its allies like the U.S. has been refused in a number of cases. This exclusionist approach has compelled Turkey in making a decision to purchase advanced air defense systems like the S-400 from other sources. Nowadays, we are witnessing a more and more Turkophobic mentality inspired mainly by evangelist ideas in U.S. officials toward Turkey.
In this very chaotic international environment, preventing the delivery of F-35 fighter jets to a key NATO member state such as Turkey will not only serve to damage NATO deterrence and its fighting capacity, but it will also serve as a source of serious indignation for the whole of the Turkish people.
* Analyst at Center for Eurasian Studies (AVİM)
