House Blocks Sale of F-16s to Ankara, but Will Move To Dial Down Greece-Turkey Tensions Fly?

ATHENS — Amid tensions between NATO members Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea and elsewhere, the House of Representatives has passed an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act aimed at stopping President Biden from selling F-16s to Turkey.Upper chamber support for the measure is likely; the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Menedez, has said he opposes selling the jets to Turkey. The Senate must approve its own version of the measure before it can become law, and before that lawmakers need to come to a compromise on the $839 billion NDAA, which also passed in the House Thursday.Representatives Chris Pappas of New Hampshire and Frank Pallone of New Jersey, both Democrats, were among the co-leads on the measure, which comes at a time of mounting friction between Turkey and Greece over maritime rights and sovereignty issues in the Aegean. A press release from Mr. Pappas’s office said that it followed “several bipartisan actions led by Pappas to oppose the Biden Administration’s proposal to sell F-16s, F-16 modernization kits, and other advanced weapons and equipment to Turkey despite its possession of the Russian S-400 missile system and continued violation of U.S. law.”That language will please Athens just as certainly as it will chafe Ankara, which has in recent weeks escalated its war of words with Athens with a number of revisionist territorial claims to various Greek islands, including large ones such as Crete, home to a major NATO base. Turkish fighter jets routinely violate Greek airspace with overflights. Soon after the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, made a long and well-received speech to Congress in May, in which he pointedly referred to Turkish revisionism and its 48-year illegal occupation of Cyprus, the Turkish president, Tayyip Erdogan, said of Mr. Mitsotakis, “He no longer exists for me. I will never agree to meet with him.” At the NATO summit in Madrid last month, the two leaders did not meet.In his press statement Mr. Pappas also said, “I have consistently opposed the sale of F-16s to Turkey and advanced weapons and equipment to upgrade its existing F-16 fleet. It remains deeply troubling that President Biden supports moving forward with this sale despite Turkey’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric and aggression towards Greece, a reliable democratic NATO ally.” Singling out the Turkish leader, he added, “The passage of this bipartisan amendment sends a strong message to Turkey and to the international community that the United States will not allow the Erdogan government to escape accountability for violating U.S. law and the standards of the NATO alliance.”Mr. Pallone also appeared to take aim at Turkey: “For far too long, the United States has allowed Erdogan to dictate his terms and hide behind Turkey’s status as a NATO ally,” he said in a statement. Mr. Erdogan “has done the bare minimum to bolster NATO’s strategic posture since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered the largest crisis the alliance has faced in decades.”That is consistent with the State Department’s recent rebuke of Turkey over a spate of high-profile but spurious territorial claims to Greek islands that are deeply offensive in neighboring Greece. According to the center-right Greek daily Kathimerini, “American lawmakers soured on Ankara after its 2019 acquisition of a Russian-made missile defense system, triggering U.S. sanctions as well as Turkey’s removal from the F-35 fighter jet program.” Keeping the latest generation of F-16s out of the Turkish air force’s arsenal, or at least moving resolutely in that direction, telegraphs a strong message to Ankara to tamp down the aggression before it gets out of hand. Greece and Turkey almost went to war in 1996 over Imia, a pair of uninhabited rocky islets in the Aegean Sea that lie closer to Turkey than to mainland Greece. Recent Turkish bombast points to Ankara’s coveting more than just rocks. Whether American moves to deny Ankara fighter jets will help relations between Athens and Ankara simmer or have the opposite effect remains to be seen.Politico reported that the measure was adopted 244-179, with 184 Democrats backing the proposal. “If the provision becomes law, President Biden will have to certify that the sale is critical to U.S. national security,” the report said. A new F-16 Fighting Falcon, manufactured by Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, can cost upwards of $64 million for one jet.Mr. Erdogan is not likely to look favorably at the new hurdle to acquiring the jets and a rancorous response — more likely directed at Athens than Washington — can be expected in the days to come. The Greek newspaper Ta Nea reported on Friday that “the US blockade on the sale of the F-16s” left Ankara “shocked.” Whether Mr. Pappas has any specific inkling of where Turkish saber-rattling can lead, and how fast, is not clear — the Sun attempted to reach his Washington office for comment on Thursday but had received no response as of Friday. The lawmaker previously told CNN Greece that he is “deeply concerned about the threat posed by Turkey’s actions and rhetoric towards Greece and the possibility of a heated episode.”

House Blocks Sale of F-16s to Ankara, but Will Move To Dial Down Greece-Turkey Tensions Fly?

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