Türkiye Presses Washington as F-16 Block 70 Deliveries Stay Stalled
Türkiye has told the United States it wants to see “concrete action” on the 40 F-16 Block 70 fighters it agreed to buy, according to a Turkish Cabinet source cited in reporting this week, noting that Ankara has already advanced roughly $1.5 billion toward the deal without a single aircraft delivered. The statement, first carried by Russian state media and since repeated across Turkish and regional outlets, puts a number on a frustration Turkish officials have aired periodically since Washington approved the sale in January 2024.
Talks between the two sides resumed on September 21 after a quiet period, according to a report from Al-Monitor, with Ankara pressing to renew its fighter fleet at a moment when its F-35 path remains blocked and its own fifth-generation KAAN programme is still years from delivering combat-ready aircraft in numbers.
A Deal Approved, Then Stuck
Türkiye first requested 40 new F-16 Block 70 Vipers and modernisation kits for 79 of its existing F-16s in October 2021, in a package the US State Department valued at roughly $23 billion. Washington approved the sale in January 2024, shortly after Türkiye ratified Sweden’s NATO accession — a sequence widely read at the time as linked, though US officials never formally confirmed a connection. Congress cleared the deal weeks later.
Since then, Ankara has scaled back its own request. Türkiye dropped the 79-aircraft modernisation-kit order and instead launched ÖZGÜR, a domestic upgrade programme run by Turkish Aerospace Industries that fits existing Turkish F-16s with a locally built mission computer and radar improvements. Block 30 upgrades under ÖZGÜR are targeted for completion by 2027, with Block 40/50 work scheduled for 2028-2030. That left the 40 new-build Block 70 jets as the active item in Washington — and that is the part of the deal that has not moved.
The sticking point, according to Turkish sources cited in regional reporting, is a production contract between the US Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin that remains unsigned more than two years after Congress cleared the sale, even as ASELSAN and other Turkish suppliers continue signing their own export deals at a faster pace elsewhere in the portfolio. Lockheed Martin has reportedly sought additional costs tied to mission-computer upgrades and to expanding production capacity to work through a global order backlog — Taiwan’s own long-delayed Block 70 order is a frequently cited example of how backed up the line already is. Turkish reporting also indicates Ankara is pushing for a degree of “sovereignty” over the aircraft it eventually receives, meaning the ability to integrate Turkish-made mission computers and munitions rather than taking the jets as a fully US-configured package. None of this has been confirmed on the record by Lockheed Martin or the Pentagon, and no delivery schedule has been published by either side.
The CAATSA Backdrop
The F-16 dispute cannot be separated from the reason Türkiye is in this position at all: its 2019 purchase of the Russian S-400 air-defence system, which triggered Türkiye’s removal from the F-35 programme and sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. Six Turkish-funded F-35s, worth an estimated $1.4 billion, remain undelivered and in US custody. Washington has indicated that CAATSA relief and any F-35 re-entry would require Türkiye to give up the S-400 system outright — “cease possession,” in the language used in Washington — a step Ankara has not taken, although Turkish officials have said discussions with Moscow on the system’s status are ongoing.
That makes the F-16 Block 70 order Türkiye’s main near-term path to modernising a fighter fleet still built around roughly 230 F-16s of varying ages, at the same time regional air forces are moving ahead. Greece has committed to 20 F-35s with an option for 20 more, with deliveries due to begin in 2028, and Israel already operates 48. Türkiye’s own hedge against being left behind — the indigenous KAAN programme — had its first flight in February 2025 and is not expected to begin deliveries to the Turkish Air Force before 2028, with TUSAŞ discussing a ramp toward 250-300 aircraft over the following decade. For the next several years, the F-16 fleet, not KAAN, is what the Turkish Air Force will actually fly in numbers, which is why a stalled Block 70 contract carries more weight in Ankara than its price tag alone suggests.
Why a NATO Ally Is Still Waiting
For an international audience, the episode is a reminder that NATO membership does not translate automatically into frictionless defence-industrial cooperation. Türkiye sits inside the alliance, hosts US nuclear-capable aircraft at Incirlik, and has contributed troops and equipment to NATO missions for decades — yet a fighter sale approved by Congress in 2024 still has no signed production contract heading into the final quarter of 2026. The dispute also illustrates a wider pattern: as Washington’s defence-industrial base works through order backlogs from multiple allies simultaneously, even approved sales to treaty allies can stall on contractual and pricing details long after the political decision has been made.
Turkish officials have given no indication they are prepared to walk away from the F-16 order, and both sides describe talks as ongoing. But with no contract signed, no delivery window published, and Ankara now attaching a public number — $1.5 billion — to money already spent, the F-16 Block 70 sale has become a visible test of how far the US-Türkiye defence relationship has actually recovered since 2019.
Sources: Türkiye Today; Türkiye Today (Al-Monitor report); Meta-Defense.
