A senior United States diplomat will be traveling to Türkiye next week to meet officials from the Turkish Foreign and Defense Ministries for talks on arms control and security issues, according to the U.S. State Department.
The State Department said on Thursday in a statement that Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Mallory Stewart will travel to Jerusalem and Ankara between Sept. 4-9.
"In Ankara, Assistant Secretary Stewart will meet MFA and Ministry of National Defense officials on strategic stability, risk reduction and current arms control and security matters," the statement read.
Stewart will also travel to Jerusalem, where she will meet officials from the Israeli Foreign Ministry for discussions on "strategic stability, multilateral arms control, responsible uses of artificial intelligence and space security," added the statement.
Relations between Ankara and Washington have been strained in recent years due to a number of issues, including U.S. support for the YPG/PKK in Syria and disagreements over Türkiye's strained relations with neighboring Greece and purchase of Russia's S-400 air defense system and Washington's sanctions on Ankara.
In 2019, under then-President Donald Trump, the U.S. removed Türkiye from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program over Ankara's purchase of the S-400 system.
Ankara requested F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits from Washington in October 2021, which is awaiting approval from the U.S. Congress. The $6 billion deal would include the sale of 40 jets as well as modernization kits for 79 warplanes already in the Turkish Air Forces Command's inventory.
In July after meeting President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the NATO leaders’ summit where Ankara finally agreed to let Sweden into the security alliance, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Türkiye was “more hopeful than ever” regarding the deal.
