ANKARA: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a deal on Monday under which Turkiye will buy 20 Eurofighter Typhoon jets for eight billion pounds ($11bn), deepening the Nato allies’ defence ties and bolstering Turkish air defences.

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

Starmer met President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Monday to sign the agreement, which comes as Turkiye 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.

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

Nato’s second biggest military

Europe has increasingly turned to Turkiye, 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.

Turkiye, which wants to fill a gap before its own KAAN fighters are ready in the coming years, opened talks on obtaining the Typhoons in 2023. Last year, Ankara secured a $7-billion deal with Washington for 40 F-16s that have faced delays.

Air attacks by Israel on 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. The visit marked Starmer’s first to Turkiye since taking office last year.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2025