It’s fair to say that surrendering regional air superiority to rival air forces such as those of Israel and Greece has never been in the defence strategy pursued by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but as Nato member country leaders gathered this week for a summit of the bloc in The Hague, the fact that the Turkish air force is not keeping up must have been on his mind.

After defying Washington by acquiring S-400 missile defence batteries from the Kremlin in 2019, Turkey was kicked out of the development and procurement programme for the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth aircraft, the world’s most advanced fighter jet. Israel, meanwhile, has assembled an extensive F-35 fleet and Greece plans to do so.

Erdogan, speaking to reporters on his flight home from the Nato summit, said that Turkey has not given up on acquiring F-35s from the US and has expressed its desire to rejoin the programme for the fifth-generation fighter jet, Reuters reported on June 26.

Erdogan, who met US President Donald Trump for one-on-one discussions, said he was hopeful of progress in convincing the White House to remove the sanctions that bar Turkey’s way to purchasing F-35s.

"We have not given up on the F-35s. We are discussing our intention to return to the programme with our counterparts," he was cited as saying by his office on June 26. "We discussed the issue in our meeting with Mr Trump, talks at a technical level have started. God willing, we will make progress," he added.

A particular obstacle to Turkey winning back its rights to F-35 purchases could be Israel—defence analysts expect it to lobby hard against Trump granting Turkey access to the jets given its determination to stay out ahead of any regional competitors in the realm of defence and its poor relations with Turkey.

At the summit on June 25, Erdogan also spoke of efforts to acquire 4.5-generation Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, as used by the British, German, Italian and Spanish air forces, among others.

Germany in particular has over the years shown reluctance towards selling Eurofighters to Turkey given various spats including one over Turkish incursions into northern Syria, but Erdogan said he held talks with Britain and Germany on a purchase and that there were “positive developments”.

German daily Handelsblatt on June 26 reported that senior Berlin officials and defence circles were signalling that the export deal to sell Eurofighters to Turkey would soon materialise under the new government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz that took office in May.

The Eurofighter is built by a consortium of Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain, made up of companies Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.

In other developments that emerged from the Nato summit, Bloomberg on June 26 reported that Erdogan urged French leader Emmanuel Macron to involve non-EU allies like Turkey in shaping Europe’s planned new defence and security architecture.

Turkey has been pushing for closer defence and economic cooperation with Europe, with the continent assessing ways of reducing its reliance on Washington, which has become much less predictable on defence matters under Trump, as it contends with the prospect of an increasingly hostile Russia.

Ahead of the meeting, Erdogan was reportedly expected to ask Macron to drop his opposition to joint production of a European-made missile-defence system. That might boost Ankara’s plans to build its own “steel dome” missile-defence shield over the next two to three years.