As US President Donald Trump heads to Turkey for a NATO summit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday urged Washington not to sell advanced weaponry to Ankara, and in particular F-35 jets.

Speaking to Fox News, Netanyahu called Turkey “a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants ‘Death to America.'”

“I don’t think they should be given F-35s or engines for their fighter jets,” he insisted.

Last month, Trump seemed to indicate he would agree to sell Turkey F110 fighter jet engines and readmit the country to the F-35 program. Turkey needs the engines for its KAAN fifth-generation fighter jets, which it began developing after it was excluded from the F-35 program in 2019.

Netanyahu argued that such a move would “upset the balance of power in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israel’s air superiority and also America’s posture in the Middle East.” Israel has dozens of F-35s in its inventory.

He called Turkey “a great country” but lamented that it is ruled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who, he said, openly threatens Israel with destruction and occupies half of Cyprus.

Reuters reported last month that the Trump administration has formally notified Congress of its intention to sell more than $700 million of jet engines to Turkey. The report cited two sources and a copy of the formal notification seen by the news agency.

Asked at the time if he was preparing to sell the engines and F-35s to Turkey, Trump said “I think so, look… I’m going to probably do something that’s going to make him [Erdogan] very happy.”

Pressed on what specifically needs to happen for the F-35 sale to go through, Trump punted the question to Vice President JD Vance.

“There are certain things that we have to certify that have happened in order to comply with American law. The president has asked us to do that… so they can get the F-35s… This is really a congressional thing,” Vance said before Trump chimed in, insisting that the issue would be sorted out.

Sale of the F-35 to Turkey would be seen as........

© The Times of Israel