From her account Senate for the United States Defense Budget (NDAA) amendments imposing conditions on Turkey for modernization F-16.

The removal of these amendments was linked to the decision to remove all amendments that did not receive broad consensus, as the chairman of the Senate Defense Committee claimed that he wanted the Senate’s final text to include only those amendments on which there was no disagreement.

In addition, the reservations voiced by the Republican co-chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations and Defense Committees appear to have played an important role in the development of the F-16 amendments. In fact, behind the scenes pressure from the White House has been added to these reservations, which wants its options to go beyond such binding amendments.

However, a similar amendment to the F-16 by Rep. Chris Papas has already entered the House version of the bill. In practice, this means that the fate of the amendments will be decided during the negotiations that will take place between the House of Representatives and the Senate on the final version of the NDAA.

Finally, it’s worth noting that regardless of the NDAA bill, Senator Menendez retains the power, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to veto defense contracts.

Menendez amendment

Recall that a few days ago, the US Senator and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Robert Menendezfiled an amendment to the US Defense Appropriations Bill (NDAA), which established the terms for the sale and modernization of Turkey’s F-16s.

Specifically, Senator Menendez’s amendment stated that “The President may not sell or authorize the export of new F-16s or F-16 upgrade technologies or upgrade kits to any authority under the terms of the Defense Control Act.” Export to the Turkish government. , or any agency or agency of Turkey, unless the President confirms to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Congressional Defense Committees:

• that such a transfer is in the national interest of the United States.
• (this certification) must include a detailed description of the specific measures taken to ensure that such F-16s are not used by Turkey for its repeated unauthorized flights over Greece.”

Ten days ago it was filed by a senator. Chris Van Hollen and the second amendment, which imposed additional conditions on Turkey to acquire and upgrade F-16 fighter jets.

With information from APE/PE