![]() Van Hollen hopes that expressly connecting the fighter jets to the Sweden/Finland issue will get Ankara to change course. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-N.H.) and THOM TILLIS (R-N.C.), who co-chair the Senate NATO Observer Group, led a letter of 29 senators to President JOE BIDEN urging him to withhold the warplanes until Turkey gives Sweden and Finland the green light. He’s joined by other senators, including SFRC Chair BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.), in railing against the country’s regional aggressions and vowing to keep American-made F-16s out of Turkey’s hands.Īnd just today, Sens. Last year, he introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Action to block the weapons sale. The lawmaker has long rung the alarm bells about Turkey. “That is my personal view, but I think it reflects overwhelming majority sentiment in the Senate.” “I don't think we should be providing the advanced F-16 to Turkey, when they're refusing to cooperate with the rest of the NATO alliance,” he told NatSec Daily. shouldn’t sell Turkey the aircraft it most wants. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee member cited a list of transgressions: Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system, attacks on U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria, sidestepping of sanctions on Moscow and, most recently, a near-unilateral block of Sweden and Finland joining the alliance.įor those and other issues, but especially the accession one, Van Hollen believes the U.S. The NATO nation is an “unfaithful ally,” he told NatSec Daily in a Wednesday afternoon interview. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-Md.) is mad at Turkey under President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN, and he doesn’t care who knows it. Chris Van Hollen told NatSec Daily in a Wednesday afternoon interview. The NATO nation is an “unfaithful ally,” Sen. ![]()
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