The clauses that made Turkey's F-16 purchase conditional in the US were completely removed

The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which also includes the US’s 2023 defense budget, has also removed the articles introduced by the House of Representatives to limit Turkey’s purchase of F-16s. A conference committee consisting of senators and representatives from both houses of the US Congress finalized the NDAA draft, which also includes the $857 billion defense budget. Anadolu Agency has reached the final version of the draft text, which will be voted on in the plenary sessions of both houses of Congress. The final version of the draft did not include the articles that would have restricted F-16 sales to Turkey, which were introduced by 18 representatives, including Democrat New Hampshire Representative Chris Pappas, Republican Florida Representative Gus Bilirakis, Republican New York Representative Nicole Malliotakis and Democrat New Jersey Representative Frant Pallone, who are known for their closeness to the Greek Cypriot lobby, and were added to the House version of the bill and accepted. The removal of the relevant articles came after similar articles previously introduced by New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and Maryland Senator Chris van Hollen were not added to the Senate version of the NDAA. The additions in question, which were approved in the House of Representatives, included a provision that would not allow the sale of new F-16s to Turkey under the Arms Export Control Act and that F-16 modernization kits would not be sold, and the exemption of this article was conditioned on the following conditions: "The president may grant an exemption to this article after the relevant committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives have been presented with concrete steps to ensure that the sale would affect important national security interests of the United States and that these weapons would not repeatedly violate Greek airspace." While the articles introduced by Menendez and van Hollen were not added to the Senate bill, the bill introduced by Pappas and his supporters was accepted and added by the House of Representatives on July 14. It has been stated that the efforts of Turkish diplomats and the State Department in Washington were effective in this step taken by Congress. With the removal of the relevant articles in the conference committee, the US Congress has been stripped of the leverage to impose some restrictions on Turkey’s F-16 purchases on legal grounds, but in order for the arms sale to take place, there must be no objection from Congress to the administration’s sales notification. On the other hand, members of Congress, especially Menendez, who are known to be anti-Turkey and close to the Greek lobby, are declaring that they will block the sale of F-16s to Turkey at every opportunity. Turkey is requesting 40 new F-16 Block 70 fighter jets from the US and modernization kits for 80 aircraft in its inventory.