A 15-day congressional overview interval on a $700 million U.S. sale of jet engines to Turkiye expired Thursday with out a vote, clearing the State Division to proceed with a deal that may assist energy Ankara’s new indigenous fighter jet.
The division notified Congress of the proposed sale on June 24, triggering the overview window required for main arms transfers to NATO allies. The bundle covers integration, meeting, exterior modification, certification, testing and technical information switch for F110-GE-129E/F engines constructed by Basic Electrical — engines meant to energy the KAAN fighter being developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries.
A blocking effort fashioned nearly instantly. 9 lawmakers, led by Democratic Consultant Dina Titus of Nevada, filed a joint decision in the course of the overview interval searching for to cease the sale. Titus was joined by Brad Sherman, Chris Pappas and Jim McGovern, every of whom has beforehand opposed protection exports to Turkiye, together with an earlier F-16 sale. 4 extra co-sponsors — Jim Costa, Josh Gottheimer, Mike Quigley and George Latimer — symbolize districts with sizable Armenian, Greek or Israeli diaspora communities and share a report of opposing Turkiye-related arms offers. Sherman, who sits on the Home Overseas Affairs subcommittee on the Center East and North Africa, has individually flagged the F110 sale particularly as a priority, aside from his broader objections to arming Turkiye.
Neither the Home nor the Senate introduced the decision to a vote earlier than the window closed, so the sale superior with out both chamber appearing on it. Below the statute governing main overseas arms gross sales, a blocking decision should clear each chambers and be signed by President Donald Trump to take impact; a veto would require a two-thirds override, which means at the very least 290 votes within the Home and 67 within the Senate.
The opposition traces again to Turkiye’s 2019 buy of Russia’s S-400 air protection system, which prompted the Pentagon to expel Ankara from the F-35 program days after the primary elements arrived and price it greater than $9 billion in projected workshare on that plane. Congress wrote that exclusion into everlasting regulation the next yr: Part 1245 of the fiscal 2020 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act bars transferring F-35s, or associated gear and technical information, to Turkiye except the Secretaries of Protection and State certify to Congress, at the very least 90 days prematurely, that Ankara now not possesses the S-400 or any related gear or personnel. The supply carries no presidential waiver. Individually, Turkiye’s protection procurement company has been underneath sanctions since December 2020 underneath the Countering America’s Adversaries Via Sanctions Act, a 2017 regulation aimed toward Russian arms patrons. The F110 engine sale falls exterior each restrictions, because it doesn’t contain F-35 expertise, however the lawmakers behind the blocked decision argued Turkiye’s broader relationship with Washington nonetheless warranted scrutiny.
The overview interval’s expiration landed two days earlier than Trump traveled to Ankara for a NATO summit on July 7 and eight, timing Turkish officers and Western analysts stated was unlikely to be coincidental. On the summit, Trump informed reporters alongside President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that his administration would transfer to raise the CAATSA sanctions altogether. “We’re going to be taking the sanctions off,” he stated. He added that Turkiye’s return to the F-35 program was one thing the administration would think about, although doing so would nonetheless require Ankara to fulfill the NDAA’s certification requirement — a step it has not taken, in accordance with a 2025 Congressional Analysis Service report that famous six Turkish-owned F-35s stay in storage in the USA.
Turkiye has already obtained an preliminary batch of 10 F110 engines to help KAAN prototype testing. The newly cleared sale provides roughly 80 extra, meant to develop flight testing and help low-rate preliminary manufacturing as this system strikes from demonstrator plane towards an operational fighter. KAAN made its first flight in February 2024 and is supposed to start changing Turkiye’s F-16 fleet, with preliminary deliveries focused for 2028 to 2030. The engine itself is just not unfamiliar in Turkiye: TUSAS Engine Industries already assembles the F110 underneath license for the nation’s F-16s, giving Ankara present upkeep infrastructure and decreasing the technical danger of leaning on the engine by KAAN’s early years. Turkiye is individually growing its personal engine, the TF35000, meant ultimately to energy later KAAN variants and provides the nation full management over manufacturing and export, although that program stays years from maturity.
Even because the engine query performs out domestically, Turkiye is urgent to promote KAAN overseas. Indonesia has signed a $10 billion contract for 48 of the jets, and Turkish officers say preliminary government-to-government contacts have opened with Spain, although no formal course of has begun there. Sinan Ulgen, director of the Istanbul-based EDAM assume tank, stated the approval would probably cowl round 40 engines and clear obstacles that had been holding up growth of the KAAN fleet.
A senior Republican congressional aide informed The Hill this week that the administration had given Congress no formal indication it intends to raise the CAATSA sanctions, regardless of Trump’s remarks in Ankara. The F-35 query stays separate from the engine sale now cleared for supply, and Part 1245’s certification requirement stands till Turkiye’s standing with the S-400 modifications.
