The US Department of Defence has no plans to speed Turkey’s exit from the F-35 fighter jets supply chain and will continue to acquire parts until 2022, although Congress has increased pressure on the Pentagon to abandon those contracts.
A letter signed by US senators on Monday urged Secretary of Defence Mark Esper to stop sourcing parts from Turkey. It said Ankara was “not behaving like a responsible actor or working collaboratively with the West”.
A defence department official told The National on condition of anonymity on Wednesday that honouring contracts with Turkey will continue until 2022 to avoid disruptions to the supply chain
The date is two years beyond the timeframe the Pentagon had envisioned.
Turkey was removed from the F-35 consortium in 2019 after it bought the Russian S-400 missile defence system.
The US also ended its F-35 training programme for Turkey and blocked the transfer of those aircraft to Ankara.
The National Defence Authorisation Act signed by President Donald Trump last December prohibited those transfers of parts, but the Pentagon is looking away for now, despite pressure from Congress urging that the Turkish connection be severed.
A bipartisan group of senators wrote to Mr Esper, urging him “to remove Turkey from the supply chain of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter”.
The letter, signed by Republicans James Lankford and Thom Tillis and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Van Hollen, said: “From human rights violations in Syria to arbitrary arrests of Americans in Ankara to defence cooperation with Russia, Turkey is not behaving like a responsible actor or working collaboratively with the West at the level we expect from a Nato ally.”
Turkey was a member of the F-35 consortium since 2002, alongside the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway and Denmark.
The senators said that continuing the contracts hurt US geopolitical efforts. "By keeping Turkish manufacturers in the supply chain two years after the initial statute took effect [2020] and well beyond the Pentagon’s self-imposed deadline, the department is impeding our nation’s diplomatic and geopolitical efforts to pressure Turkey to reverse course.”
Aaron Stein, research director at The Foreign Policy Research Institute, regarded the Pentagon’s decision to continue importing components as a matter of necessity rather than policy.
"Turkey makes single-sourced parts and replacing them, which includes certifying new suppliers, takes time," Mr Stein told The National.
“The F-35 programme will last for decades, and a two-year unwind of Turkish suppliers won’t matter in the long run,” he said, citing Covid-19 disruptions as an added complication for defence contractors.
Turkey could also face more sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which was passed overwhelmingly in 2017 to punish any significant transactions with Russia.
Turkey has been unrepentant in its acquisition of S-400 and tested it against F-16 fighter jets in November.
But when it came to Turkey, President Donald Trump, who has fostered a close relationship with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and is negotiating a major trade deal with Ankara, opted to delay the imposition of these sanctions.
Honeymoonish
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MATCH INFO
Tottenham Hotspur 3 (Son 1', Kane 8' & 16') West Ham United 3 (Balbuena 82', Sanchez og 85', Lanzini 90' 4)
Man of the match Harry Kane
The stats
Ship name: MSC Bellissima
Ship class: Meraviglia Class
Delivery date: February 27, 2019
Gross tonnage: 171,598 GT
Passenger capacity: 5,686
Crew members: 1,536
Number of cabins: 2,217
Length: 315.3 metres
Maximum speed: 22.7 knots (42kph)
Ain Issa camp:
- Established in 2016
- Houses 13,309 people, 2,092 families, 62 per cent children
- Of the adult population, 49 per cent men, 51 per cent women (not including foreigners annexe)
- Most from Deir Ezzor and Raqqa
- 950 foreigners linked to ISIS and their families
- NGO Blumont runs camp management for the UN
- One of the nine official (UN recognised) camps in the region
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
All or Nothing
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Four stars
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Avengers: Endgame
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Josh Brolin
4/5 stars
The five pillars of Islam
SQUADS
Bangladesh (from): Shadman Islam, Mominul Haque, Soumya Sarkar, Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Mahmudullah Riyad, Mohammad Mithun, Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das, Taijul Islam, Mosaddek Hossain, Nayeem Hasan, Mehedi Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadat Hossain, Abu Jayed
Afghanistan (from): Rashid Khan (capt), Ihsanullah Janat, Javid Ahmadi, Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Asghar Afghan, Ikram Alikhil, Mohammad Nabi, Qais Ahmad, Sayed Ahmad Shirzad, Yamin Ahmadzai, Zahir Khan Pakteen, Afsar Zazai, Shapoor Zadran
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
- Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
- Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
- Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
- Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
- The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
- Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269
*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
Messi at the Copa America
2007 – lost 3-0 to Brazil in the final
2011 – lost to Uruguay on penalties in the quarter-finals
2015 – lost to Chile on penalties in the final
2016 – lost to Chile on penalties in the final
Indoor Cricket World Cup
Venue Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23
UAE squad Saqib Nazir (captain), Aaqib Malik, Fahad Al Hashmi, Isuru Umesh, Nadir Hussain, Sachin Talwar, Nashwan Nasir, Prashath Kumara, Ramveer Rai, Sameer Nayyak, Umar Shah, Vikrant Shetty
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Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
