Turkey to seek ‘alternatives’ to US F-35 fighter jet

28 August 2019, 9:26 pm

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A day after vowing closer defence cooperation with Russia, Turkey says it will seek “alternatives” to the F-35 fighter jet program the United States has excluded it from.

Washington said last month Turkey will be scrapped from the F-35 program after Ankara bought Russian S-400 air defense systems.

“We need war jets. If we cannot buy the F-35s, we will look for new alternatives,” official news agency Anadolu quotes Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.

Military vehicles and equipment, parts of the S-400 air defense systems, are unloaded from a Russian transport aircraft, at Murted military airport in Ankara, Turkey, July 12, 2019. (Turkish Defence Ministry via AP, Pool)

Turkey has lambasted as “unfair” the US move to exclude it from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme. The White House said the jet could not “coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities.”

Turkey has said it plans to start using the S-400 missile defence system by April 2020. The second phase of delivery began Tuesday.