A clear and unequivocal signal that Turkey must take seriously the role that Congress is being asked to play in shaping American foreign policy was sent by US Under Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander.

During a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Senator Jin Sahin asked how the US administration is handling Turkey’s F-16 request under the weight of new data that has emerged since Ankara’s refusal to support its Swedish entry into NATO. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State responded that “The Department of Defense is raising exactly the same questions to our Turkish allies at every opportunity and reinforcing (the message) that Congress plays an important role in the democratic processes that support American foreign policy and should be taken seriously.”

It seems that Deputy Foreign Minister Victoria Nuland was on the same wavelength, who assured that The US constantly raises the issue of Sweden and Finland on the Turkish side, to whom they informed that Congressional support was needed to improve its security. As he characteristically noted, “almost all (our allies) have ratified (the accession protocol), with the exception of Hungary and Turkey. This (question) comes up in every conversation we have with Turkey, and we tried with the Swedes, as you know, to put forward a roadmap that they will develop with Turkey.

They have achieved many of these milestones and continue to strive to do more in this direction. We said the same to our Turkish allies as you just said that we need the support of this Congress to move forward with the security improvements we think they need as allies. Congress is likely to take a much more favorable view of the issue after ratification..

For her part, Senator Jin Sahin said she would not support the delivery of F-16s to Turkey until Ankara ratifies Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership. In addition, he acknowledged that there are other issues related to this particular defense contract. As he characteristically remarked, “I think many of my colleagues share this concern. I know there are other issues with the F-16 but I just want to discuss this as one of the issues I have.

I think that Sweden has made very good progress in resolving the issues that have been discussed with Turkey regarding its membership in NATO, and that, unfortunately, President Erdogan is using this issue to his advantage. He appears to be doing this to serve his own domestic political interests rather than doing what is truly in NATO’s interests and the security arrangements we need as we support Ukraine in its fight against Russia.”

Source: RES-IPE