Milliyet: Ankara may receive non-US fighter jets for the first time
According to the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, the Turkish Air Force may use non-US aircraft for the first time in its history if Ankara agrees to purchase Eurofighter aircraft.
On Friday evening, the Turkish Haber TV channel reported, citing sources, that Germany had agreed to start technical negotiations with Türkiye regarding the supply of Eurofighter fighters.
Turkish National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler had previously said that Türkiye intended to buy 40 of these fighter jets, and had obtained the approval of Britain and Spain and was trying to convince Germany.
London promised as well to help remove Berlin’s objections.
For the first time in its history, the Turkish Air Force will use a non-US aircraft… Although the aircraft isn’t American-made, the avionics systems and munitions it uses are familiar, which is a great advantage, but the biggest advantage of these aircraft is that they have an AESA radar, which we will get with the Eurofighter.
The course of air conflicts in the world has changed now.
“We’re no longer living in the era of dogfights, but in the era of early detection of the enemy using modern radars and missile launching, a power that Greece has gained thanks to the Rafale aircraft it bought from France… Now we will be on an equal footing with them,” according to Milliyet newspaper.
The Turkish newspaper indicated that Türkiye doesn’t intend to abandon the project to develop the fifth-generation national fighter aircraft TAI TF Kaan, as it continued, “Why are we buying the Eurofighter now? We aim to produce two TAI TF Kaan aircraft per month and 24 aircraft per year, which includes the introduction of a domestically-made engine… Our goal is to reach a fleet of 200 aircraft on average, and until then we must protect our homeland’s skies in the best possible way, and that is why we are buying the Eurofighter fighters”.
