Senators approve the F-16 deal to Turkey with caution as part of the deal to expand NATO- “A deal is a deal”

On Thursday, US senators expressed their strong disapproval of Turkey’s actions as an ally, but they decided not to stop the supply of F-16s to Turkey. They were honoring an unwritten agreement whereby the Turks will receive the fighter jets in exchange for their ceasing to obstruct Sweden’s NATO membership.

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared, “A deal’s a deal.”

Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who sponsored the legislation to try to stop the sale, advised other senators to “make it quid pro quo.” “That seems more reasonable than extortion.”

The Senate rejected Paul’s plan by a vote of 13 to 79.

Sen. Risch of Maryland got the Senate floor prior to the vote, alongside Sen. Ben Cardin of the Democratic committee, to list a few of the many American complaints against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration. These include the government’s track on human rights, its assaults on American allies in Syria, its support for Azerbaijan’s offensives against an ethnic Armenian enclave, and Turkey’s relationships with Russia on military transactions and other issues.

Still, the senior foreign policy leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties contended that Sweden’s accession to NATO was too crucial to the U.S. and the Western military alliance’s wider strategic interests to permit Turkey, a fellow NATO member, sabotage it.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO.

With their troops, sectors, and locations close to or surrounding Russia, the United States and most other NATO partners backed the entry, arguing that it would boost the alliance. Following Erdogan’s reversal of his original opposition, Finland became a member of NATO this past year.

One of Erdogan’s complaints about Sweden was that it provided asylum to Turkish critics living abroad. However, Erdogan also openly connected his disapproval to his desire to overcome American resistance to selling him upgraded versions of the cutting-edge fighter plane.

Risch declared, “I’m not going to support Turkey or any of the things that they do.” “My purpose here is to uphold the significance of NATO.”