US President Joe Biden has confirmed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed readiness to buy American F-16 fighter jets. The announcement was made during a telephone conversation in which Biden congratulated Erdogan on his victory in the presidential election, Reuters reported May 30.

In a conversation with reporters, Biden spoke about the details of the conversation:

"I spoke with Erdogan. I congratulated Erdogan. He still wants to resolve the issue regarding the F-16 aircraft. I told him that we want to negotiate with Sweden, so let's solve it. So we will be in touch with each other again".

The US President added that he plans to discuss this topic in more detail with his Turkish counterpart next week.

Turkey, in turn, plans to purchase F-16 multirole fighter jets worth $20 billion from a NATO ally. However, the deal is slowing down due to objections from the US Congress, despite the fact that the Biden administration has repeatedly stated its support for the deal.

Earlier this year, a $259 million smaller weapons package, including a software update for the Turkish Air Force's current fleet of F-16s, was approved by the US Congress days after Turkey ratified Finland's entry into NATO.

In February, a bipartisan group of US senators sent a letter to the White House stating that Turkey's failure to ratify the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland to NATO would "cast doubt on the forthcoming sale" of F-16s.

Turkey ratified Finland's entry into NATO at the end of March, but continues to delay ratifying Sweden's bid, alleging that Stockholm provides political asylum to Kurdish fighters whom Ankara considers "terrorists."

Sweden's accession to NATO by mid-July is one of Washington's top priorities. Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022. Admission of new members to NATO requires the approval of all 30 countries in the alliance.