The NATO summit takes place in 2 days, July 7-8, chaired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the participation of leaders of 32 alliance member countries.
Last month, when asked about Turkey's desire to buy F110 engines as well as return to the F-35 fighter program, Mr. Trump declared that he would make Mr. Erdogan very happy.
Analysts believe that this is likely to mean that the US will give the green light for exporting F110 engines that Turkey wants to use for the KAAN domestic stealth fighter project.
Mr. Sinan Ulgen - Director of the research organization Edam based in Istanbul - told AFP: "It is likely that the US will agree to supply about 40 General Electric F110 engines for the KAAN fighter. Previously, this supply faced many obstacles and those barriers are very likely being removed.
According to him, Turkey has manufactured some KAAN prototypes using F110 engines and these aircraft have successfully test-flown. However, Ankara is still waiting for more engines to be able to increase the number of test aircraft.
KAAN is a twin-engine stealth fighter developed by the Turkish Aerospace Industries Group (TAI) to replace the Turkish Air Force's F-16 squadron. KAAN brings the country into the group of countries capable of self-producing 5th generation fighter jets such as the US, China and Russia.
In the long term, Turkey plans to equip KAAN with engines developed by this country itself, replacing F110 engines that do not fully meet the requirements for stealth capabilities. However, according to Defense Minister Yasar Guler, the domestic engine project is currently only in the initial design phase. Turkey received the first batch of 10 F110 engines in September last year, and is continuing negotiations with the US government to buy 80 more engines.
However, this deal was stalled because it was not politically approved after Turkey bought Russia's S-400 air defense system in 2017, according to Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Turkey was also removed from the US F-35 program in 2019 and sanctions were imposed under CAATSA law a year later.
Mr. Fidan believes that the CAATSA issue needs to be resolved. According to him, the US needs to take action related to both the F-35 program and the approval of the KAAN engines, because these engines are still awaiting approval by the US Congress.
This statement also attracted attention in Turkey because Ankara had previously repeatedly affirmed that KAAN would be a domestically produced fighter line.
