Turkey working to accelerate Eurofighter jets buy, official says

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey has been conducting technical works aimed at accelerating its planned purchase of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets, a defence ministry official said on Thursday.

Ankara said last year it was in talks with Eurofighter consortium members Britain and Spain to buy Typhoons, though Germany objected the idea. Since then, it has complained of a lack of progress on the issue over Berlin's reluctance.

Last month, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of United Nations general assembly. Scholz is set to meet Erdogan on Saturday in Istanbul and the jets are expected to be discussed.

"Technical level works for the procurement of Eurofighter Typhoon jets are under way. The works are aimed at accelerating the process. No conditions have been raised in these works," the defence ministry official told reporters.

The Eurofighter Typhoon jets are built by a consortium of Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain, represented by companies Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.

NATO member Turkey recently secured a deal to procure 40 F-16 fighter jets and 79 modernisation kits for its existing F-16s from the United States, after a long-delayed process.

Ankara is also developing its own national combat aircraft KAAN.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)