“I would say that Lockheed isn’t exactly happy,” Mr Trump said on Tuesday.
“Turkey is very good with us, very good,” Mr Trump said, citing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to release a detained American pastor last year. “And we are now telling Turkey because you have really been forced to buy another missile system, we’re not going to sell you the F-35 fighter jets.”
The U.S. decision to withdraw the F-35s order is a setback for Mr Erdogan, who had bet heavily on a direct relationship with Mr Trump to resolve the issue and persuade the U.S. president to disregard his own administration’s repeated calls for punishing Turkey. One official said Mr Trump is hesitant to impose sanctions on Turkey because he wants Ankara’s help on regional issues, including his pending plans to withdraw from Syria.
But the move sparked outrage within the administration and prompted then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to resign, with many warning Mr Trump that Turkey would directly target U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. Former President Obama’s initial strong relationship with Mr Erdogan was strained by the U.S. decision to arm and train Syrian Kurdish fighters in the battle against Islamic State. The same issue has dogged relations between Messrs. Trump and Erdogan, and the missile issue became intertwined with the two countries’ divergent goals in Syria.
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