The U.S. House of Representatives today, by a vote of 244-179, approved an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would ban the United States to sell or transfer the F-16 fighter jets to Turkey unless the administration certifies that doing so is essential to U.S. national security and included a description of concrete steps taken to ensure they are not used for repeated unauthorized overflights of Greece.

The House approved the measure, offered by Democratic Representatives Frank Pallone and Chris Pappas.

The amendment is not yet the law of the land. Once the House passes its version of the NDAA, the U.S. Senate must approve it.

U.S. President Joe Biden, in June, announced that he supported selling the fighter jets to Turkey.

Biden's decision followed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan withdrawing his opposition to Finland and Sweden entering NATO.