Türkiye's Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul indicated during an official visit to Washington that Türkiye plans to acquire 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, Turkish newspapers reported on 31 October 2006. The purchase, intended to replace aging F-16, F-4, and F-5 jets in the Turkish Air Force, is expected to cost between 11 and 12 billion dollars and unfold over the next three to four decades.
Gonul held talks with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Gordon England, covering counterterrorism and military procurement among other subjects. He said a memorandum of understanding involving all nine partner nations would be signed by late November, with the first aircraft delivered to Türkiye in 2014.
The F-35 program is led by Lockheed-Martin and financed by a nine-country consortium that includes the United States, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Türkiye, Australia, Norway, and Denmark, with initial operational capability expected in 2012. Gonul also planned to tour the Lockheed-Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas, before returning home. The competing candidate in Türkiye's procurement evaluation had been the Eurofighter Typhoon, produced by a British, German, Italian, and Spanish aerospace partnership.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in October 2006, in its own words.