Turkey has “aggressive aspirations” and supplying Ankara with fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets would “destroy the power balance in the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
Asked by CNN‘s Dana Bash about U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was considering readmitting Turkey to the F-35 program, which would allow Ankara to purchase the advanced stealth fighter, Netanyahu warned that Turkey was not friendly to the United States.
Netanyahu said he voiced his concerns “several times” in conversations with the president.
“I think that everybody understands that, notwithstanding the personal friendship that President Trump has with [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan, it doesn’t make Turkey a friendly state to the United States,” the prime minister said.
“It’s a regime that’s infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the United States. He harbors Hamas, the Hamas terrorists. He supports them, he finances them. He’s thrown his opponents in jail, all of them. He throws more journalists in jail than anyone can understand. So, he’s not exactly a model ally of the United States,” said Netanyahu.
Erdoğan “threatens to destroy my country, the one and only Jewish state,” he continued. “His number two says that we have no place among the nations, and you know what that means. And his number three, the interior minister, says that he’s looking forward to be the governor of Jerusalem—hello, sovereign country?”
The Israeli leader also cited Turkey’s nearly 52-year occupation of northern Cyprus and threatening rhetoric toward Greece.
“They openly say that they want to restore the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire not only included Turkey, it included many other countries, included Syria, it included pieces of Jordan, included all of present-day Israel, included some Gulf countries,” he noted.
The “radical” Turkish regime “is not a force for peace and stability” but “admittedly smiles to America when it is necessary, or smiles to the president of the United States when is necessary,” according to Netanyahu.
He concluded, “When you give him that power, you’re going to see aggression in its wake—I wouldn’t do that.”
Erdoğan said on Tuesday that Trump had made a “promise” to sell F-35s to his country as the two leaders met ahead of the two-day NATO summit in Ankara.
Speaking at a press conference at the Turkish presidential complex, Erdoğan said through a translator, “I believe that President Trump also has made a promise on this separately, and during the meeting of the leaders’ summit, we do hope that the promise that we have previously received is going to be productively tested toward the future. President Trump has always been a man of his word, and hopefully with respect to the F-35.”
The United States removed Turkey from its partner program to purchase the advanced stealth jet in 2019, during Trump’s first term after, Ankara bought S-400 surface-to-air missile defense batteries from Russia. The following year, the United States imposed sanctions on Turkey over the Russian air-defense purchase.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he would be lifting the sanctions against Turkey, and said the United States had an “obligation” to sell it replacement parts for its existing stock of U.S.-made jets, but was noncommittal about selling F-35s.
“It’s a decision we’re going to make,” Trump said.
U.S. law prohibits the sale of F-35s to Turkey so long as it retains the Russian systems, but Turkey may now be willing to sell or transfer the systems as part of a deal.
