British Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a deal on Monday in which Türkiye bought 20 Eurofighter Typhoon jets for 8 billion pounds ($10.7 billion), his office said, deepening the NATO allies' defence ties and bolstering Turkish air defences.
In July, Türkiye and Britain had signed a preliminary purchase deal for 40 Typhoons approved by Eurofighter consortium members including Germany, Italy and Spain, represented by Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.
Starmer met President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Monday to sign the agreement, which comes as Türkiye seeks to leverage the advanced warplanes to make up ground with regional rivals such as Israel, which has unleashed strikes across the Middle East this year.
Türkiye, enjoying its warmest ties with the West in years, has sought to procure the Eurofighters and also potentially U.S.-made F-35s to backstop its ageing fleet of mostly F-16s.
TURKEY HAS NATO'S SECOND BIGGEST MILITARY
Europe has increasingly turned to Turkey, NATO's second-largest military and a major exporter of armed drones, to reinforce its eastern flank and potentially backstop any future post-war stabilisation force in Ukraine.
Last week, citing a person familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that Turkey was nearing a deal in which it would promptly receive 12 Typhoons, albeit used, from previous buyers Qatar and Oman to meet its immediate needs, with more new jets coming from Britain in future years.
Last week, Erdogan visited Qatar and Oman in part to discuss the plan.
Turkey, which wants to fill a gap before its own KAAN fighters are ready in coming years, opened talks on obtaining the Typhoons in 2023. Last year Ankara secured a $7-billion deal with Washington for 40 F-16s that have faced delays.
Air attacks by Israel - the region's most advanced military power with hundreds of U.S.-supplied F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighters - on Turkey's neighbours Iran and Syria, as well as on Lebanon and Qatar, have unnerved Ankara over the past year and persuaded it to revamp its defences, officials said.
The visit marked Starmer's first to Turkey since taking office last year.
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The explosion at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday afternoon killed at least 12 people and injured a further 309, according to Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Authority. The airport remains closed until further notice.
One person was killed and nearly a dozen hurt in a new attack Riyadh's international airport on Sunday, Saudi authorities reported, a day after a strike claimed by Yemen's Houthis that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300.
Yemen's Houthis renewed warning to airlines, airport workers, and travellers against using Saudi airports, saying the warning should be taken seriously and that the kingdom “bore responsibility for failed interceptions”, a day after an attack on Riyadh's international airport that killed 12 people.
The Houthi movement has escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia, targeting the airport in Riyadh and other cities, killing more than a dozen people.
Ukraine is ready to stop attacks on Russian oil refineries if Moscow also halts strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
The Kremlin on Monday rejected a 60-day ceasefire idea proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to allow his country to hold presidential elections, saying it wanted an overall peace deal instead.
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