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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Tensions across the Middle East continue to escalate following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory attacks in the Gulf region, with military operations and regional security developments continuing to unfold.
A Russian drone damaged a civilian Panama-flagged vessel that was transporting corn near the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk in the Black Sea Odesa region, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority said late on Wednesday.
Start your day informed with AnewZ Morning Brief. Here are the top news stories for the 5th of February, covering the latest developments you need to know.
Australia and Canada said on Thursday they had signed new agreements on critical minerals as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a landmark address to the Australian parliament, a sign of the developing bond between the "middle powers".
U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. military has enough stockpiled weapons to fight wars "forever"; in a social media post late on Monday. The remarks came hours before conflict in Iran and the Middle East entered its fourth day.
A torpedo from a U.S. submarine sunk an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth told reporters as the Iranian conflcit entered its fifth day on Wednesday.
Shahid Motahari Sub-Speciality Hospital in northern Tehran and parts of the Golestan Palace were bombed on day two of the U.S.‑Israel strikes. AnewZ Touraj Shiralilou is in Iran's capital city and said that the facility was flattened in an airstrike.
Türkiye has suspended day-trip crossings at its Kapıköy border and two others with Iran as regional tensions escalate following strikes involving the United States and Israel on Tehran. AnewZ's Alisultan Sultanzade was on the ground at the crossing before the restrictions came into force.
At least 42 people have been killed and 104 wounded in fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on Tuesday. The latest death toll figures come as fighting between the two neighbours enters its sixth day.
A Russian drone damaged a civilian Panama-flagged vessel that was transporting corn near the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk in the Black Sea Odesa region, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority said late on Wednesday.
Start your day informed with AnewZ Morning Brief. Here are the top news stories for the 5th of February, covering the latest developments you need to know.
Australia and Canada said on Thursday they had signed new agreements on critical minerals as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a landmark address to the Australian parliament, a sign of the developing bond between the "middle powers".
More than 200 people died on Tuesday in a landslide triggered by heavy rains at the Rubaya coltan mine in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the country's mines ministry said on Wednesday.
A power outage struck most of Cuba, including Havana, the state electric utility said on Wednesday (5 March), as the Communist-run government grapples with increased pressure from the Trump administration that has curtailed oil shipments.
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