Until Turkey relents on keeping Sweden out of NATO……
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told us [Punchbowl] this week that the United States shouldn’t sell advanced American fighter jets to Turkey until Ankara ends its blockade of Sweden’s NATO accession.
In an interview ahead of next week’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, McConnell backed Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez’s (D-N.J.) hold on the proposed sale of F-16s to Turkey. McConnell’s position helps ratchet up congressional pressure on a U.S. ally that has stood in the way of a historic expansion of the Western military alliance.
“I’m one of those who are not in favor of the F-16 sale to Turkey until the admission of Sweden gets behind us,” McConnell said in an interview Wednesday. “We had anticipated that would happen in Vilnius.”
Securing Sweden’s accession to NATO has been a top priority for the United States in the run-up to next week’s summit, seeing it as yet another symbol of strength for the West amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Turkey’s objections over unrelated matters are preventing Sweden’s formal admittance, which requires ratification from all NATO members.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is convening top officials from Sweden and Turkey later today in Brussels in a last-ditch effort to break the impasse ahead of the summit.
Here’s what President Joe Biden said about the hold-up on Wednesday after meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at the White House:
While the Biden administration has insisted that the F-16 sale and Turkey’s approval of Sweden aren’t connected, we scooped on Tuesday that the State Department is now actively working Menendez over his objections to the sale with the hope that it could prompt Turkey to relent on Sweden’s NATO admittance. Menendez is one of four lawmakers with the power to prevent certain military sales….