Pentagon vows to scale back Turkey’s F-35 component production

The Turkish participation in manufacturing of components for the U.S. F-35 fighter jets will continue to decrease over the next two years, Russian news site News.ru cited Pentagon spokesman Thomas Campbell as saying on Tuesday.

The production of components has been almost completely transferred to other countries and will continue to decline in line with the U.S. policy towards Turkey, Campbell said.

“There are no changes in US policy regarding Turkey’s status in the F-35 program. Turkey’s membership in the F-35 program has been suspended,’’ Campbell said. “Most of the components’ production was moved [to other countries] in 2020, and it will continue to decline in 2021 and 2022.”

The United States excluded Turkey from an international consortium to build the F-35 in July 2019, after the country received the first batch of Russian S-400 air defence missiles.

Washington in December also imposed sanctions on the Turkish Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) as part of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA(..

Washington maintains the Russian surface-to-air missile system is incompatible with NATO technology and a threat to the alliance.