Turkey signs deal to buy 20 Eurofighters from Britain for 8 billion pounds

By Ece Toksabay

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey agreed to buy 20 new Eurofighter Typhoons from Britain for 8 billion pounds ($10.7 billion) on Monday, deepening the NATO allies' ties and bolstering Turkish air defences, as Ankara said it was also seeking 24 more jets from Gulf states.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, on his first visit to Turkey since taking office last year, signed the deal with President Tayyip Erdogan and called it a "landmark moment". Erdogan said joint defence industry projects could follow.

The deal, which some analysts called expensive, comes as Turkey seeks to leverage the advanced warplanes to make up ground with regional rivals such as Israel, which has unleashed strikes across the Middle East this year.

Europe meanwhile has increasingly turned to Turkey, NATO's second-largest military and a major exporter of armed drones, to reinforce its eastern flank and potentially backstop any future post-war stabilisation force in Ukraine.

PLANS FOR 24 MORE FROM OMAN AND QATAR

Separately, the defence ministry said Turkey plans to buy 12 more Typhoons each from Oman and Qatar.

Last week, citing a person familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that Turkey was nearing a deal in which it would promptly receive 12 Typhoons, albeit lightly used, from Oman and Qatar to meet its immediate needs, with more new jets coming from Britain in future years.

London said Ankara would receive the first of the batch of 20 Typhoons in 2030. Starmer said the deal, for which talks began in 2023, included an option to buy more.

Istanbul-based security and defence analyst Burak Yildirim called the 8-billion-pound price tag "outrageously high" and "unprecedented", even if it includes options, ammunition, spare parts and training.

"They're selling planes at frigate prices," Yildirim said. "This agreement is outright fraud. You can't have a combat jet for 400 million pounds; they’re selling one plane for the price of four."

The sides did not give details on what, beyond the planes, was included in the deal.

FILLING GAPS IN TURKEY'S FLEET

In July, Turkey and Britain had signed a preliminary purchase deal for up to 40 Typhoons approved by Eurofighter consortium members including Germany, Italy and Spain, represented by Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.

Last week, Erdogan visited Qatar and Oman in part to discuss the plan.

Turkey, enjoying its warmest ties with the West in years, has sought to procure the Eurofighters and also potentially U.S.-made F-35s to backstop its ageing fleet of mostly F-16s.

It wants to fill a gap before its own KAAN fighters are ready in coming years, and last year it secured a $7-billion deal with Washington for 40 F-16s that have faced delays.

Air attacks by Israel - the region's most advanced military power with hundreds of U.S.-supplied F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighters - on Turkey's neighbours Iran and Syria, as well as on Lebanon and Qatar, have unnerved Ankara over the past year and persuaded it to revamp its defences, officials said.

($1 = 0.7451 pounds)

(Additional reporting by Alistair Smout in London and Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Gareth Jones and Andrew Heavens)