This is a win for everyone - except RuZZia.
“Biden Administration to Ask Congress to Approve F-16 Sale to Turkey”
“The deal depends on Ankara’s signoff to NATO expansion, administration officials say, and comes alongside an F-35 sale to Greece”
“The Biden administration is preparing to seek congressional approval for a $20 billion sale of new F-16 jet fighters to Turkey along with a separate sale of next-generation F-35 warplanes to Greece, in what would be among the largest foreign weapons sales in recent years, according to U.S. officials.
Administration officials intend the prospect of the sale to prod Turkey to sign off on Finland and Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Ankara has blocked over objections to their ties to Kurdish separatist groups. Congress’s approval of the sale is contingent on Turkey’s acquiescence, administration officials said. The two countries ended decades of neutrality when they decided to join NATO last year in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The sale to Turkey, which the administration has been considering for more than a year, is larger than expected. It includes 40 new aircraft and kits to overhaul 79 of Turkey’s existing F-16 fleet, according to officials familiar with the proposals.
Congressional notification of the deal will roughly coincide with a visit to Washington next week by Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. The sale to Turkey also includes more than 900 air-to-air missiles and 800 bombs, one of the officials said.”
Europe may avoid a recession. Who would have thunk it 6 months ago?
“Europe’s Mild Winter Cushions Economic Blow of Ukraine War”
“Lower energy prices, government support mean Europe could face the shallowest of recessions—if its economy shrinks at all”
“Russia’s economic war with the West looks set to claim a much smaller toll on Europe than the brutal recession many economists warned about just months ago, due to falling energy prices and government intervention to buttress the continent’s economy.
A mild winter so far, efforts by businesses and households to cut energy consumption, successful moves by governments to find new natural-gas suppliers and hundreds of billions of euros in fiscal support mean Europe’s recession is likely to be shallow and brief—if it happens at all—according to fresh data and estimates.
And with energy costs now falling back toward levels seen before Moscow’s attack on Ukraine, the cost of the subsidies and tax relief deployed by European capitals to soften the blow are set to shrink, reducing their impact on public finances.”