Washington, DC \u2013 Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) led a bipartisan letter with Congressman Gus M. Bilirakis (FL-12) and over 50 leaders from the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues and the Congressional Hellenic Caucus. In a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the lawmakers strongly urge them to reject a request from the Republic of Turkey to purchase next-generation F-16 fighter jets and upgrade kits from the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purchase of advanced fighter jets from the United States for Turkey\u2019s military arsenal will not incentivize Erdo\u011fan to change course and become a good actor. It will more likely lead to further death and destruction in the region at the hands of his military,\u201d\u00a0the lawmakers wrote<\/strong>. \u201cTurkey also continues to utilize S-400 missile defense systems, which potentially exposes important tactical information about U.S. weaponry and military operations to Russia. While this is antithetical to their commitments as a NATO ally and jeopardizes American national security, Erdo\u011fan uses this tactic consistently to pit the United States and Russia against each other to achieve his desired goals.\u201d<\/p>\n Erdo\u011fan\u00a0has demonstrated a willingness to provide support to authoritarian regimes in acts of war. Last September, Turkey actively aided Azerbaijan and foreign mercenaries in a deadly invasion of Artsakh that led to six weeks of devastating fighting that killed more than5,000 people and forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their homes. Artsakh and Armenia continue to grapple with an ongoing humanitarian crisis that resulted from the invasion.<\/p>\n Reports\u00a0of Turkey\u2019s request surfaced after President Biden and President Erdo\u011fan met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit last fall.\u00a0If approved, this sale will encourage Turkey\u2019s destabilizing actions in the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, South Caucasus, and Northern Africa. The sale would also allow Erdo\u011fan to further ignore his commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and continue his ongoing human rights abuses at home.<\/p>\n A copy of the letter is available\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Washington, DC \u2013 Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) led a bipartisan letter with Congressman Gus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"post_badge":[],"class_list":["post-2204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-press-releases"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16.jpg",1200,845,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-250x176.jpg",250,176,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-768x541.jpg",640,451,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-400x282.jpg",400,282,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16.jpg",1200,845,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16.jpg",1200,845,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-1115x715.jpg",1115,715,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-800x500.jpg",800,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-1024x721.jpg",1024,721,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-540x340.jpg",540,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16-400x250.jpg",400,250,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16.jpg",45,32,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"ArmenianCouncil","author_link":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/author\/armeniancouncil\/"},"category_info":"News<\/a> Press Releases<\/a>","tag_info":"Press Releases","comment_count":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/F16.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2204"},{"taxonomy":"post_badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_badge?post=2204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}