Just hours after President Donald Trump said he’s considering selling F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkey, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke against the potential move, even as he downplayed divisions between the two world leaders.
Axar.az reports in an interview with CNN, Netanyahu warned that the sale of America’s most advanced fighter aircraft “doesn’t make Turkey a friendly state to the United States.” In part of an escalating dispute with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Netanyahu described Ankara as “a regime that’s infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the United States.”
“He’s not exactly a model ally of the United States,” Netanyahu told CNN’s Dana Bash. “He threatens to destroy my country, the one and only Jewish state.”
“This is not a force for peace and stability. When you give them that power, you’re going to see aggression in its wake,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu said he’d urged Trump directly not to sell the jets to Turkey, saying Tuesday that doing so would “destroy the power balance in the Middle East.”
Netanyahu downplayed any divisions with Trump, saying the two see “eye-to-eye” on major issues, even after Trump said over the weekend that the Israeli leader “knows who the boss is.”
“He’s the President of the United States. He does what is good for the United States,” said Netanyahu. “I’m the Prime Minister of Israel, I do what is what is important for Israel, and most of the time these things are identical.”