Turkey’s handling of the withdrawal of the Menendez amendment caused discomfort in Congress and in US government circles. In Washington, where everyone knows that such a development of events is not connected either with the influence of a highly paid Turkish pressure apparatus, or with some ingenious strategy of Erdogan’s headquarters, they were surprised at the triumph and triumphalism. And accordingly, they were worried about the narrative that had developed in Athens about the defeat of the Greeks.

In fact, the factors that contributed to not including this amendment in the Senate text are three times. The predominance of the usual American realism, which in this case is expressed in the phrase of one of the leading senators: “do not tie the hands of the president, we are at war.” For procedural reasons, since under the pressure of the midterm elections, only 75 of the 900 amendments originally included in the body’s defense budget were adopted without a plenary session. And the White House’s decision to leave the traditional decision-making mechanism related to international arms sales unchanged.

Both parties in Congress agree that such decisions should be made by the appropriate committees and not be imposed through amendments. “Today it is Turkey, tomorrow it will be Saudi Arabia, and at some point the committees will be completely weakened,” congressional sources told K, trying to justify their position in favor of rejecting the amendment. However, they make it clear, and perhaps most importantly, that the refusal to support this particular amendment in no way means support for Turkey’s request for purchase and modernization. These are two completely different things, as they explain.

Regarding the request as such and the rumors about his desire, according to reliable information, absolutely nothing has changed, at least at this stage. The current technical talks are being delayed for a number of reasons, but are nonetheless expected to be finalized sometime in the coming months.

At the next stage, the US government will send a notice to the relevant committees on foreign affairs of the House of Representatives and the Senate and will wait for the final verdict, which will be issued by the so-called “Team 4”. There, decisions are made unanimously, and the opinion of the committee chairman has the same weight as the opinion of his deputy, with what this means for the Turkish demand, even after the possible role reversal that could occur in the midterm elections. .

However, it is important to understand the reason behind the initial decision to push the two amendments (Papa-Menendez). It was an additional layer of security against Turkish aggression, another tool to counter it. No one who worked behind the scenes on behalf of Greece relied on them or invested exclusively in them to achieve their goals. In fact, as an important factor in the Greek-American lobby explains to K, “the utility of the two amendments is much greater than their final result, even if it is difficult to perceive on first reading.”

When the Turkish request for the purchase and modernization of the F-16 was submitted, few in Washington linked it to overflights and violations in the Aegean. What has been achieved today, a year later, is that these two issues are interrelated and form a “common package”. This package was on the agenda of all kinds of US-Turkish negotiations, discussed in Congress, reached the Oval Office, was the subject of analysis by all think tanks and American media, and according to reliable information, this also significantly influenced the development of technical discussions about the purchase and upgrade.

Even those who still support Turkey have realized that any future green light for upgrading or selling the F-16 must somehow be accompanied by special conditions for flights and respect for Greek sovereignty over the islands of the Aegean. Conditions that, if Turkey does not consistently comply with them (because years pass from the moment an agreement is concluded, for example, on an upgrade to the delivery of an upgraded product), will cause a series of events, perhaps reminiscent of the case of the F-35. If this story has taught us anything, as they say pointedly in Washington, it is that all deals, no matter how advanced, can be cancelled.

S-300 gaffe and stern reporting

It is now widely accepted in both the administration and Congress that Turkish provocations in the Aegean and the unprecedented level of aggressive rhetoric are too hard to ignore. It is also hard to ignore the lack of confidence in Turkey, which has been exacerbated by the unfounded accusation of Greece for using the S-300. The charge was easily dismissed, since the Greek side convincingly proved to its interlocutors that a different defense system was used, and not the Russian anti-missile system.

It is now clear to the Americans that Turkey is blaming Greece based on the plan, but without being able to support and prove its claims. Characteristically, a few weeks ago in New York, a high-ranking American official personally conveyed to Mr. Erdogan the message that “if you don’t stop the aggression in the Aegean, you will never see F-16s.” And to the expected answer of the Turkish president that “the Greeks are committing violations,” he asked to provide him with all the evidence. He is still waiting for them to be sent to him, according to his department.

In the same context of difficult discussions that Americans have behind closed doors with an interlocutor whom they do not trust, the angry admonition of a senior government official to the Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister, who recently visited Washington. “Help yourself,” he told him, “by stopping the dangerous game you are playing in the Aegean, if you don’t, don’t expect us to help you get an F-16.”