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Norway orders US jets in $10-billion deal

Norway said on Friday it had authorized orders for the first two F-35 fighter jets it plans to buy from the United States as part of its largest-ever government spending project.

Norway orders US jets in $10-billion deal
Photo: Tore Meek/Scanpix

"Norway today commenced the largest public procurement project in its history," the government said in a statement.

Defence Minister Espen Barth Eide hailed the 60-billion-kroner ($10-billion) deal for a total of 52 jet fighters.

"The F-35, which Norway selected in 2008, represents a completely new generation of combat aircraft that will form a corner stone of the future Norwegian Armed Forces," he said in the statement.

Norway agreed in 2008 to buy 52 Lockheed Martin-built F-35A Lightning II planes from the United States, but had put off placing its orders until it got the green light from US authorities to integrate a Norwegian-made weapons system into the plane earlier this week.

"We will begin preparations for the final phase of Joint Strike Missile (JSM weapons system) development after receiving confirmation from US authorities of their support for the integration of the missile into the F-35," Barth Eide said.

"Securing such support has been an important precondition for many of our partner nations before they would themselves commit to supporting the JSM," he said.

While securing US support does not automatically mean that the Norwegian missile system will be integrated into all F-35s, Oslo voiced optimism that other users of the planes would opt to take it.

"Total market potential for the JSM is estimated to be between 20 and 25 billion kroner," the government said.

It said the two planes authorized on Friday would be joined by two more in 2016, and would be based in the United States "as part of a joint partner training centre".

"They are to be followed by up to 48 additional aircraft from 2017 that are to be based at Ørland Main Air Station in central Norway," it said, adding that the overall cost of the procurement phase of the project was estimated at 60 billion kroner.

"Norway's parliament yesterday approved a significant increase in defence spending in order to finance the purchase and to increase the general operating budget of the armed forces," Barth Eide said.

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NATO

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he would back Sweden's Nato candidacy if the European Union resumes long-stalled membership talks with Ankara.

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

“First, open the way to Turkey’s membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland,” Erdogan told a televised media appearance, before departing for the NATO summit in Lithuania.

Erdogan said “this is what I told” US President Joe Biden when the two leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community — a predecessor to the EU — in 1987. It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.

The talks stalled in 2016 over European concerns about Turkish human rights violations.

“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Erdogan said. “Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius.”

Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is due to meet Erdogan at 5pm on Monday in a last ditch attempt to win approval for the country’s Nato bid ahead of Nato’s summit in Vilnius on July 11th and 12th. 

Turkey has previously explained its refusal to back Swedish membership as motivated by the country’s harbouring of people connected to the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group, and the Gülen movement, who Erdogan blames for an attempted coup in 2016. 

More recently, he has criticised Sweden’s willingness to allow pro-Kurdish groups to protest in Swedish cities and allow anti-Islamic protesters to burn copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

In a sign of the likely reaction of counties which are members both of Nato and the EU, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the two issues should not be connected. 

“Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. “The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

Malena Britz, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University, told public broadcaster SVT that Erdogan’s new gambit will have caught Sweden’s negotiators, the EU, and even Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg off guard. 

“I think both the member states and Stoltenberg had expected this to be about Nato and not about what the EU is getting up to,” she said. “That’s not something Nato even has any control over. If Erdogan sticks to the idea that Turkey isn’t going to let Sweden into Nato until Turkey’s EU membership talks start again, then Sweden and Nato will need to think about another solution.” 

Aras Lindh, a Turkey expert at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs, agreed that the move had taken Nato by surprise. 

“This came suddenly. I find it hard to believe that anything like this will become reality, although there could possibly be some sort of joint statement from the EU countries. I don’t think that any of the EU countries which are also Nato members were prepared for this issue.”

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