It is a fact that Çavuşoğlu's visit to the USA did not bring the desired result for the Turkish regarding the issue of the sale of F-16s to Washington, a fact that was largely contributed to by Erdogan's blackmail for the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO.
We had predicted it, as seen in our related article long before the Turkish Foreign Minister's visit to Washington entitled, "Why Çavuşoğlu's upcoming visit to the US to acquire F-16s will fail".
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Τουρκία: Τον Φεβρουάριο η ανακοίνωση του υποψηφίου για την προεδρία της αντιπολίτευσης
In fact, the matter seemed to be disconnected from Greek-Turkish matters, although it is not, since Menendez's strong reaction to the sale of American fighter jets had its central argument the Turkish aggression against Greece in the Aegean and the SE Mediterranean.
Essentially, the issue had a time extension, since apparently the Biden government is not negative, although our opinion is that the American government is trying to buy time, hoping to get rid of Erdogan in a short period of time, anticipating his defeat in the upcoming elections elections.
In our earlier article entitled "A 'step' before Turkey's elections - Why Western leaders as well as Greece will be glad to see Erdogan's back", we explained in detail the reasons why US-West-Greece did not want Erdogan to be re-elected.
In addition to the above, even after the USA slapped Turkey on the F-16 issue, the Turkish press is still raising false hopes among the country's citizens even on the F-35 issue!
In particular, Turkish media in an article entitled "Turkey and the USA continue talking on the F-35 issue". states the following:
"The delegations of the Turkish Ministry of Defense and the USA Department of Defense held the second round of consultations on the issue of F-35 fighter jets in Washington on January 19, the Turkish Ministry of Defense announced.
"The delegations agreed to continue the consultations. The next meeting is scheduled to take place in Ankara in the spring of 2023," the statement said.
A dialogue process between Ankara and Washington was launched to find a solution to the problems that arose due to the exclusion of Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program, and the first meeting took place in 2021.
Turkey was kicked out of the F-35 program in 2019 due to Russia's deployment of S-400 air defense systems, and the fighter jets it paid for, were not delivered.
The USA claimed that the Russian S-400s would compromise the safety of the F-35s, but Turkey said those fears were unfounded and had repeatedly proposed a commission to clarify the issue.
Ankara says it paid $1.4 billion for five planes and is asking the USA to return the money after it was officially excluded from the program on September 23, 2021.
These discussions are described as technical and will be conducted with the participation of legal advisers, lawyers and experts."
Our assessment is that until the Turkish elections, the USA will not proceed with any agreement regarding the F-16s, since this would give points to Erdogan, who would present it as acceptance of his foreign policy by Washington, even as USA fear of him.
Finally, there is no discussion on the F-35 issue, as long as Turkey keeps the S-400s.
In closing, we point out that the issue of F-16s and even F-35s can be opened for discussion between the USA and Turkey, supposing that Erdogan loses the elections, if he finally holds them on the set date of May 14, 2023, something which we will refer to in detail in another analysis of ours.
