The US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, warned on Wednesday that Turkey must give up operating and owning the Russian S-400 air defence system in order to rejoin the F-35 jet fighter programme. Barrack acknowledged, however, that the positive relationship between current US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made the F-35 procurement talks the most productive in a decade.
In a message posted on his X account and echoed by numerous Turkish media outlets, Barrack noted that negotiations between Washington and Ankara over the fifth-generation F-35 fighters are still ongoing, although he emphasised that US law sets clear conditions for Turkey to return to the programme and receive these modern fighter jets.
“As laid out in U.S. law, Türkiye must no longer operate nor possess the S-400 system to return to the F-35 program,” Barrack said, acknowledging that the good relationship between Trump and Erdoğan has created a climate of cooperation, allowing “the most fruitful conversations we have had on this topic in nearly a decade”. The ambassador also expressed hope that the ongoing negotiations will achieve “a breakthrough in the coming months that meets both the security requirements of the United States and Turkey“.
“Turkey is close to completely abandoning the Russian system”
Barrack already stated on Friday 5th that Turkey has solved the problems of “operational compatibility” between Russia’s S-400 and NATO defence systems, given that they are currently not being used. However, the diplomat stressed that the mere possession of these systems still represents a security problem for Washington.
According to Bloomberg, the ambassador said at a conference in Abu Dhabi on Friday that “in my view, these problems will be resolved in the next four to six months”; when asked whether he believed Turkey was close to abandoning the Russian system altogether, Barrack replied: “Yes”.
The conflict over Russia’s S-400 anti-missile system and Turkey’s exclusion from the F-35 programme has for years been a flashpoint for tensions between the two countries, which have NATO’s two largest armed forces. Ankara argues that the purchase of the Russian system does not threaten the Atlantic Alliance’s defence architecture, while Washington considers its integration incompatible with NATO platforms and says it could compromise sensitive information on F-35 technology.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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