{"id":38424,"date":"2019-04-02T05:23:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T05:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38424"},"modified":"2019-04-02T05:23:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T05:23:29","slug":"pentagon-halts-f-35-fighter-jet-equipment-deliveries-to-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=38424","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon halts F-35 fighter jet equipment deliveries to Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Pentagon has suspended deliveries of equipment related the F-35 fighter jets to Turkey<\/a>\u00a0unless Ankara refuses to take a delivery of a Russian missile defence system.<\/p>\n

The United States<\/a> has repeatedly warned Turkey that the Russian S-400 system<\/a> it aims to buy would compromise the security of the F-35 aircraft, which is made by US company Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n

US officials speaking to Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity said the next shipment of training equipment and all subsequent shipments of F-35 materials have been cancelled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Pending an unequivocal Turkish decision to forgo the delivery of the S-400, deliveries and activities associated with the stand-up of Turkey’s F-35 operational capability have been suspended while our dialogue on this important matter continues with Turkey,” the spokesperson said on Monday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ankara, which is a production partner in the making of the stealth jet as well as a NATO<\/a> ally, has so far refused to back down on its planned purchase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The move comes just days after Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara was committed to a deal to buy the Russian<\/a> system and was discussing delivery dates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, four US senators introduced a bipartisan bill that would prohibit the transfer of F-35s to Turkey until the US government certifies that Ankara will not take delivery of the system.<\/p>\n

Security fears<\/h2>\n

The disagreement over the F-35 is the latest diplomatic dispute to strain US-Turkey relations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two countries are at odds over the\u00a0Middle East<\/a> policy, including the war in Syria<\/a> and sanctions on Iran<\/a>, and Ankara has demanded the US extradite<\/a> Fethullah Gulen<\/a>, a former imam it accuses of orchestrating an attempted coup.<\/p>\n

The US decision on the F-35s is expected to complicate Cavusoglu’s planned trip to Washington this week for a NATO summit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reuters reported last week that Washington was exploring whether it could remove Turkey from the production of the F-35.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Turkey makes parts of the plane’s fuselage, landing gear and cockpit displays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an attempt to persuade Turkey<\/a> to drop its plans to buy the S-400, the US offered the pricier, US-made Patriot anti-missile system in a discounted deal that expired at the end of March.<\/p>\n

Turkey has shown interest in the Patriot system but not at the expense of abandoning the S-400.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pentagon has suspended deliveries of equipment related the F-35 fighter jets to Turkey\u00a0unless Ankara refuses to take a delivery of a Russian missile defence system. The United States has repeatedly warned Turkey that the Russian S-400 system it aims to buy would compromise the security of the F-35 aircraft, which is made by US…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}