President Donald Trump landed in Ankara Monday afternoon for a NATO summit expected to bring a major and unwelcome development for Israel, the New York Times reports that Trump is set to tell Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Ankara can rejoin the F-35 stealth fighter program, a move that would hand one of the region's strongest militaries capabilities Israel has so far held exclusively.
According to the Times, citing four senior administration officials, the officials differ on exactly how Trump would work around congressional and legal restrictions blocking the sale, but suggested there could be an exchange of letters between the two leaders on the matter. One option under consideration inside the administration is transferring Turkey's Russian made S-400 air defense systems to a third party in order to clear the legal path to a deal. Turkey was expelled from the F-35 program in 2019 and later sanctioned after acquiring the S-400s, with US law barring the sale of F-35s to any country that possesses the Russian system, since it could allow Moscow to gather intelligence on the jet's capabilities.
Trump arrived in Ankara aboard Air Force One at 2:10 p.m. local time Monday for what Turkish media are calling the first visit by a sitting American president to Turkey in 17 years, with a welcome ceremony and a trip to the Presidential Complex following shortly after landing. The NATO summit itself, the alliance's 36th leaders' meeting, opens Tuesday at the Beştepe Presidential Compound and runs through Wednesday, chaired by Secretary General Mark Rutte. Trump is expected to hold bilateral meetings with both Erdogan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the visit, before returning to Washington Wednesday evening.
