By Ece Toksabay and Jonathan Spicer

ANKARA (Reuters) -Anxious to bolster its air power, Turkey has proposed to European partners and the U.S. ways it could swiftly obtain advanced fighter jets as it seeks to make up ground on regional rivals such as Israel, sources familiar with the talks say.

NATO-member Turkey, which has the alliance’s second-largest military, aims to leverage its best relations with the West in years to add to its ageing fleet 40 Eurofighter Typhoons, for which it inked a preliminary agreement in July, and later also U.S.-made F-35 jets, despite Washington sanctions that currently block any deal.

Strikes by Israel – the Middle East’s most advanced military with hundreds of U.S.-supplied F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighters – on Turkey’s neighbours Iran and Syria, as well as

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