WASHINGTON: Three US senators introduced a measure on Thursday aimed atblocking the transfer of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter toTurkey, a NATO ally and one of nine partner nations involved in producingthe high-tech, radar-evading aircraft.
The bill, by Republicans James Lankford and Thom Tillis, and DemocratJeanne Shaheen, comes at a time of deteriorating relations between theUnited States and Turkey, which supported the fight against Islamic Statebut has become increasingly worried about US backing for Kurdish fightersin northern Syria.
The three senators, in introducing the bill, issued a statement expressingconcern that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had embarked on a “path ofreckless governance and disregard for the rule of law.”
“Turkey’s strategic decisions regrettably fall more and more out of linewith, and at times in contrast to, US interests. These factors make thetransfer of sensitive F-35 technology and cutting-edge capabilities toErdogan’s regime increasingly risky,” Lankford said in the statement.
The Turkish embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a requestfor comment.
Erdogan declared a state of emergency in Turkey following an attempted coupin July 2016. Since then, he has detained tens of thousands of people,cracked down on dissent and carried out purges in the military andbureaucracy. He charges that followers of a US-based cleric were behind thecoup attempt.
Erdogan has been a key US ally in the fight against Islamic State but senttroops into the Kurdish-dominated Afrin region of northwestern Syriaearlier this year and threatened to quash US plans for a local securityforce in northern Syria.