WASHINGTON, D.C. – During the NATO summit this week in Ankara, President Donald Trump announced that his administration will lift sanctions on Turkey and consider readmitting Ankara into the F-35 fighter jet program, defying bipartisan opposition reflected in two congressional hearings, a Joint Resolution of Disapproval and two letters signed by dozens of U.S. Representatives.
“We’re going to be taking the sanctions off, OK?” Trump said at a press conference alongside Erdogan. Asked whether Turkey would receive F-35s, Trump called it “certainly something we will consider.”
“Members of Congress from across the aisle are sounding the alarm — through two hearings, a Joint Resolution of Disapproval and U.S. House letters to House leadership — and yet President Trump went to Ankara and crossed every congressional red-line,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “Arming Ankara may score the President a few points with Erdogan, but at the cost of angering Congress and alienating voters heading into the midterms and the 2028 presidential election.”
Members of Congress warned against this
Since Trump’s June 24 announcement of the proposed $700 million jet engine sale to Turkey and his administration’s review of Turkey’s reintegration into the F-35 program, members of Congress have moved on multiple fronts to block it.
Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) introduced H.J.Res.200, a Joint Resolution of Disapproval to block the proposed sale of General Electric F110-GE-129E/F engines for Turkey’s KAAN fighter aircraft program. Titus told POLITICO’s National Security Daily that Erdogan’s government “has made repeated threats of military action against NATO allies and other partner nations,” and that selling the engines would “embolden it to pursue those threats.”
Titus also led a letter to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries urging leadership to be prepared to introduce a Joint Resolution of Disapproval under CAATSA Section 216(c)(3) — the same sanctions authority Trump said today he intends to lift — should the administration attempt to readmit Turkey to the F-35 program without a credible legal basis. The letter cited Turkey’s “aggressive posture toward Greece and Cyprus” and its “material support to Azerbaijan in its military campaigns against Armenia” as evidence Ankara has not behaved as a good-faith NATO partner.
On a separate, bipartisan track, Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Brad Sherman (D-CA) led a letter to President Trump opposing Turkey’s F-35 reintegration. The letter states that Turkey “has hardly been a reliable partner in the present day,” pointing to its military presence in occupied northern Cyprus and its aggressive posture toward Greece, and urges the administration to “maintain this prohibition today,” warning that reversing the F-35 ban “would send the wrong message to President Erdogan and to our allies and partners both in Europe and the Middle East.”
ANCA is working alongside Hellenic American organizations, including the International Coordinating Committee — Justice for Cyprus (PSEKA), the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC), the American Hellenic Institute (AHI) and the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA), to oppose both the engine sale and Turkey’s F-35 reintegration.
Congressional hearings documented the case for accountability
Two Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearings, held June 3 and June 30, documented Erdogan’s political repression at home, Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide and its occupation of Cyprus ahead of the summit.
At the June 3 hearing, “Can Turkey Find Its Way Back to Freedom?” Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said Turkey holds more than 10,000 political prisoners, including journalists, lawyers, elected officials and civil society leaders. Michael Rubin of the Middle East Forum testified that Erdogan’s genocide denial and persecution of religious minorities, including Armenians and Greeks, follow the same pattern of impunity. “We saw this with both the Biden administration’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide and that of all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” Rubin testified. “Those recognitions happened and Turkey didn’t do a damn thing.”
At the June 30 hearing, “Human Rights in Occupied Cyprus,” Republic of Cyprus Ambassador Evangelos Savva testified that Turkey continues to block access to mass graves from the 1974 invasion, including the remains of at least five American citizens. Savas Tsivicos of the International Coordinating Committee — Justice for Cyprus (PSEKA) testified that Turkish colonization of the occupied north has reduced Turkish Cypriots to a minority in their own community and stripped basic rights from Armenians, Maronites and Latins alike. Tsivicos also warned that any F-35s or engines sold to Turkey “are not going to go against Russia” but would instead be used “against the three strategic allies of the United States: Israel, Greece and Cyprus.” Rep. Titus told the commission directly that arming Erdogan would mean “perpetuating the horrific policies of a government that has flouted international law with respect to Cyprus.”
Armenian Americans can visit anca.org/noengines to urge their representatives to support H.J.Res.200 and to oppose any move to lift CAATSA sanctions or reintegrate Turkey into the F-35 program.
Take action at anca.org/noengines.
With Republicans controlling more than half of both Houses of the US Congress, and Republican members beholden to and afraid of Trump, how can there be any effective bipartisan opposition about Turkey (especially when Trump appeases its Islamist dictator Erdogan) or about any other issue? Prior to Trump, no US President in American history exerted such an extensive control over the US Congress and over other US insitutions. This is the price of diluting the separation of powers and tolerating it.
Further proof, if any were needed, that the Americans will always side with the Turks.
When the Turks invade, and one day they will, the Americans will mouth a few words, wring their hands and won’t lift a finger.
I hope even the most delusional Armenians will look at Nato summits and realise that the Americans are not our friends.
Turkey currently has almost nothing to gain from occupying Armenian terrirory. Maybe when Armenia held Nagarno Karabakh, that scenario could have been possible. However, today the likelihood is very low.
It’s Azerbaijan that’s more likely to invade than Turkey. As Turkey is a NATO member the USA will have a bias towards them , although if Turkey continues to feud with Israel who whilst not a NATO member is more important to the USA and whether the USA continues to lead NATO given the current breakdown in the USA relationship with NATO. For Armenia the predicament was being Russia aligned yet Russia wasn’t the support commonly assumed and is cordial with Turkey and Azerbaijan put it in a weak position for being Russian aligned in the hopes of support from western countries despite the supportive diaspora in the USA and France especially.
perhaps weapons sales to any terrorist nation should be prohibited. As a NATO ally, Turkey has every right to request defensive weapons in light of the aggressive actions of Israel towards everyone of its neighbors. it would be appropriate to determine whether any of the most vocal members of the US Congress are taking money from AIPAC
@MG
Turks like yourself are the last people who should dare lecture anyone on any subject.
NATO “ally” Turkey is a major terrorist state itself. The fact that a rogue regime like Turkey is part of NATO and of other Western organizations, founded during the Cold War to defend “democracy and freedom”, is a mockery and an insult.
Turkey’s Islamofascist dictator and Muslim Brotherhood member Erdogan’s support for the jihadist terrorist organization Hamas and Syrian jihadists is blatant. The same Syrian jihadists that Erdogan brought to power to overthrow his former “friend” and then-backed fellow dictator Assad and seize control of Syria, were sent to Artsakh to commit massacres and other war crimes against Armenians. Turkey, an aggressive terrorist state with a terrorist-supporting and war-criminal dictator like Erdogan at its helm, should not receive any weapons or military equipment, let alone F-35s and other state-of-the-art weapons and military equipment.
It is not only AIPAC which now opposes and campaigns against Turkey after Erdogan fell out with Israel because of his support for Hamas over Gaza in 2009. ANCA (Armenian National Committee of America), American Hellenic Council, etc., have also been relentlessly campaigning against a rogue regime like Turkey for decades on genuine moral and historical grounds – and you know what those historical reasons are.
So stuff it and STFU.
Hear! Hear!
Given the deterioration in relations between Turkey and Israel, the interesting question is who should Armenia favour in such a circumstance, Turkey has been a repressor with blood on its hands and the grabber of Armenian lands, Israel hasn’t but has seen the Armenians as a sort of rival over their strong sense of identity, similar middleman merchant roles and has a hatred in the way Turkey doesn’t particularly on the grounds of Armenia being the first Christian nation, turning Christianity , seen by many Jews as a heresy from the sidestream to the mainstream, also unable to manipulate Armenia over the Holocaust and anti semitism is the way it does with Germany and to a lesser extent European countries and for so long had opposed recognising the ottoman killings as a genocide for a political and also purely selfish reasons and had been a jackal in this regard. Given the current way of things Turkey is more likely to clash with Israel especially over who is to dominate Syria than Turkey is to invade Armenia actually also it’s relationship with Greece is confrontational over the Aegean islands. For Azerbaijan it would put them in a predicament my guess is they would be biased towards Turkey in the way Belarus is with Russia but decline to overtly commit in the way Belarus has declined to do with Russia war against Ukraine. Perhaps Israel move to recognise the ottoman killings as a genocide is part of an outreach to Armenia although Pashinyan seems to rebuff the action indeed although unrealistic if Turkey was to recognise it as a genocide then Pashinyan would be truly trolled if he was to dismiss it as a political action like he has with Israel. Nevertheless as @MG states has AIPAC been funding opponents of Turkey returning to the F35 program and it’s procurement of weapons from the USA something which for decades when Israel and Turkey had a warm relationship was unperturbed about?