The Biden administration has announced its approved a $US23 billion deal to sell F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s Nato membership, the state department said.

Turkey will get 40 new F-16s and upgrades to 79 of the jets in its existing fleet, the state department said in a news release.

[–] hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Erdogan has been close to Putin for a long time. He's one of the most extreme authoritarians in the NATO alliance. The US has armed it's enemies in the past, and I don't think it's short sightedness has changed.

I don't believe that Erdogan will help Palestinians, but he very well may materially support Hamas as long as he doesn't do it openly enough to cause problems. I mean, Netanyahu propped up Hamas for years in order to forward his interests. No one would care if Erdogan helped justify continuing the genocide by making Hamas more dangerous to Israelis, as long as he didn't send any American weapons to them.

But perhaps I'm just extremely cynical.

[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Erdogan just wants more power, and money in his bank account. He does not care about his population nor any religious values. He is practically the Turkish Trump.

Turkey was one of the first that sent their weapons to Ukraine against Russia, they had a lot of Bayraktar compilations at the start of the Russian invasion.

[–] hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Exactly. His relationship with the US is just as cynical as it is with Russia, and as it is with any country or people (including his own). He will do or say anything that gets him more power. That means he'll be a solid US ally as long as the US is completely stable and functional, and he will take advantage of any weakness (like he did with Trump letting him murder Kurds in Syria).

I think we're in violent agreement about the overall with perhaps subtle difference in the details.

[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah I think we only slightly disagree on the amount the Erdogan will stick with America. To me it feels like he will never oppose them until America reaches a clear losing position.

Though America did likely try to replace him with Gulen in 2016 so you might be right that Erdogan is still volatile.