Turkey is carrying out technical activities aimed at accelerating the possible purchase of Eurofighter Typhoon fighters ;, Reuters reported, citing a representative of the Turkish Ministry of Defense, quoted by BTA.
Last year, Turkey announced that it was in talks with Great Britain and Spain, which are part of the Eurofighter consortium, to buy Typhoon fighters. However, Germany opposed this deal. Since then, Ankara has complained about the lack of progress on the issue, due to Berlin's reservations.
Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz within the UN General Assembly. Scholz will visit Turkey on Saturday, where he will hold talks with Erdogan, and the issue of fighter jets is expected to be discussed at their meeting.
„The work at the technical level for the delivery of the “Eurofighter Typhoon” is in progress. This activity aims to speed up the process,”, a source told Reuters.
The fighters “Eurofighter Typhoon“ are produced by a consortium involving Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain.
According to the portal “Middle East Eye”, which refers to unnamed sources, the sale of fighter jets and tanks from Berlin to Ankara is currently not realistic due to the domestic opposition in Germany to such a decision.
Germany officially began technical talks with Turkey earlier this week for the possible sale of up to 40 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. worth 5.6 billion dollars. However, according to one source, this is just a bureaucratic maneuver to delay the matter.
Turkey has long been on Germany's arms embargo list because of the use of German weapons for internal security operations in Turkey and for operations in Syria.
According to another source, Berlin has asked Ankara for written guarantees that the fighter jets will not be used to violate Greek airspace, but Turkey finds this request unacceptable.
Turkey recently concluded an agreement to supply 40 new F-16 fighter jets from the US, as well as 79 upgrade kits for older modifications of the aircraft already in service with Turkey. Ankara is also developing its own KAAN combat aircraft.