Türkiye could move to secure dozens of key fighter jet engines as U.S. President Donald Trump visits Ankara for a key NATO summit this week, analysts say, although they remained skeptical about the unresolved F-35 dispute, which has weighed on Washington-Ankara ties.

Trump's administration has formally notified Congress of its intention to sell dozens of General Electric F110 jet engines worth more than $700 million to Türkiye, media reports said late last month, a move seen as coinciding with the summit.

The July 7-8 summit, which is being hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will bring together leaders from the military alliance's 32 member states.

Last month, Trump promised to make Erdoğan "very happy" when asked about Türkiye looking to secure F110 jet engines and being readmitted to the F-35 fighter jet program.

Analysts said it would likely mean freeing up fighter jet engines that Türkiye wants to use in its flagship Kaan stealth fighter project.

"It's likely to be the green light for the F110 GE engines for the Kaan fighter plane, about 40 of them. There had been obstacles to that supply and very possibly those are now being removed," Sinan Ülgen, director of the Istanbul-based Edam think tank, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Türkiye has produced a couple of prototypes which are flying with the F110 engine, but it has been waiting for the supply of additional engines to increase the number of Kaan platforms," he said.

Kaan is a twin-engine stealth fighter being developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) to replace the Turkish Air Force's fleet of F-16s.

Although Türkiye will eventually fit the fighter with its own domestically produced engine, that project is still in the preliminary design phase, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said in September.

Türkiye received a first batch of 10 F110s in September, and talks with the U.S. government to acquire 80 more were "ongoing," he said.

Indigenous defense systems

But that's been held up by the dispute linked to Türkiye's 2017 acquisition of a Russian S-400 missile defense system, after which Washington expelled Türkiye from its F-35 fighter jet program in 2019. It also imposed Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions a year later, hampering Turkish defense projects and souring ties.

Turkish officials have called for the CAATSA issue to be resolved, and since the return of Trump to the White House, there has been a renewed momentum in Ankara-Washington ties.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said last Thursday that President Erdoğan and Trump share a "strong political will" to remove U.S. sanctions imposed under CAATSA, adding that both governments are taking concrete steps to resolve one of the most persistent disputes in bilateral ties.

Speaking in an interview with CNN Türk, Fidan said the two presidents had instructed their governments to work toward lifting the sanctions following a meeting in Washington last September.

"Both our president and President Trump have a strong will to remove the CAATSA sanctions," Fidan said. "Our defense minister and I have been working intensively on this issue. Overall, relations are moving in a positive direction."

However, Ankara's exclusion from the F-35 project has also forced it to refocus on self-sufficiency, and the country has boosted defense production and exports notably over the past half a decade.

"Some argue we should not buy F-35s and invest that money into our own fifth-generation fighter jet program. And that's exactly what's happening with President Trump's decision to export jet engines," Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, head of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, said.

F-35 deadlock drags on

Following the unveiling and first flight of Kaan, Indonesia has placed an order, signing a $10 billion contract to buy 48 fighters, although the NATO summit could generate further interest, Ülgen said.

"Looking at the failure of the German-French FCAS initiative, there may be some interest. Spain could potentially become a partner, and there may be interest from the Gulf as well," he said.

Experts expected little progress on the lingering F-35 dispute: For Congress to lift the CAATSA sanctions, Ankara would have to get rid of the S-400, but selling it to a third country would require Moscow's approval.

"The U.S. administration might wish to ... put this issue behind it and sell Türkiye some F-35, but that will go to Congress and changing the congressional decision won't be easy," said professor Mustafa Aydın, an international relations expert at Istanbul's Kadir Has University.

But Matthew Bryza, a retired U.S. envoy and former senior White House and State Department official, said Trump could move to resolve the matter as the F-35 was an executive decision, which he could easily reverse.

"President Trump can certainly declare that the S-400/F-35 dispute is finished. It's the CAATSA sanctions that require congressional action," he said.

"Whether he can persuade Congress to do that depends on how much political capital he's willing to expend," he added.