President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that he was hopeful his meeting last month with US President Donald Trump would help lift sanctions blocking Turkey’s purchase of F-35 jets, and also help resolve a legal case against state lender Halkbank.
The US CAATSA sanctions, applied in 2020 over Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defenses, and the US charges that Halkbank HALKB.IS helped Iran skirt separate sanctions that emerged as key issues in the White House talks two weeks ago.
The sides announced no agreements on those issues after the meeting between Trump and Erdogan.
“I hope the F-35 issue will be resolved and CAATSA sanctions will be lifted,” Erdogan told reporters on a flight back from Azerbaijan, when asked about the meeting and a subsequent phone call with Trump.
“We must achieve this. Our visit has ushered in a new era in Turkish-US relations and further strengthened the dialogue and friendship between us,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks shared by his office on Wednesday.
During Trump’s first term, the US removed Turkey, a NATO ally, from its flagship F-35 fighter jet program after Turkey purchased an air defense system from Russia. US officials worried that Turkey’s use of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system could be used to gather data on the capabilities of the F-35 and that the information could end up in Russian hands.
Israel has expressed concern in the past over the potential sale of the advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and other nearby countries, as it is anxious to preserve its qualitative military edge in the region.
Today, Israel is the only country in the Middle East with F-35s in its arsenal, currently operating 45 of the aircraft with another 30 units on order.
While the US has been reluctant to embrace Turkey under Erdogan in the past, citing concerns about the country’s human rights record under the longtime leader, as well as Ankara’s ties with Russia, Trump has described his relationship with Erdogan as “very good.”
Turkey’s role as a key regional player has grown, with the country recently becoming a crucial mediator and interlocutor between Israel and Hamas, as it maintains good relationships with both the terror group and the US.
Turkey is also one of the world’s most outspoken critics of Israel and supporters of Hamas, with Erdogan often accusing Israel of genocide and comparing it to Nazi Germany, and likening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
“For the last two years, they indeed even went beyond what Hitler did in terms of genocide,” Erdogan said on Wednesday in a statement.
On Halkbank, Erdogan said that Trump told him both at the White House and in their phone call that “the Halkbank problem is finished for us,” according to a readout.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing two sources, that Turkish officials proposed settling the case against Halkbank for some $100 million during the White House meeting. Shares in Halkbank subsequently rose 7.9% in Istanbul.
“We also know that there are some processes (related to Halkbank) that need to be completed. Our hope is that these processes will conclude positively as soon as possible,” Erdogan was quoted as saying on the flight.
The US Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2023 rejecting Halkbank’s claimed “sovereign immunity” in regards to its role in skirting sanctions against Iran.
Halkbank was hit with US criminal charges in 2019 that it took part in a yearlong scheme to launder billions of dollars worth of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds, violating sanctions on Iran.
The funds were used to buy gold and the transactions were disguised as food and medicine purchases in order to fall under a humanitarian exemption to the sanctions, according to court documents. As part of the scheme, Halkbank allegedly used front companies to funnel $20 billion to Iran, including $1 billion through the US financial system, the US Justice Department said.
The United States charged the bank with six counts of fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offenses, calling it one of the most serious sanctions-breaking cases it has seen.
Erdogan has repeatedly rejected the allegations facing Halkbank, insisting that Turkey did not violate the US embargo on Iran.