Turkish parliamentary speaker Mustafa Sentop has argued that Washington will not follow through on its threat to kick Ankara out of the F-35 fighter jet programme.
"Turkey being kicked on the sidelines and saying we are not providing F35 is scandalous as far as the international trade… is concerned. I don’t think at the end of the day something like that will be happening," Sputnik cited Sentop as saying.
The parliamentary speaker pointed out that the U.S. could not legally remove Turkey from the F-35 training programme because it helped build and paid for the aircraft.
"F35 project has partners and Turkey is one of those partners. Therefore the US doesn’t own that project 100%, it is not [as] if they are selling something [that is] 100% their own", he said, adding that the U.S. had a hidden political agenda when it came to the S-400 dispute.
Mustafa Sentop added that Greece and Bulgaria had an earlier version of S-400 missiles but NATO did not seem to have an issue with them.
