Greece’s Defense Minister stated on Sunday that the country should ready its armed forces for potential “instability” following the conclusion of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s current term.
Greece must prepare its armed forces for possible “instability” after the end of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest term, the Defense Minister said on Sunday.
“What will happen to Turkey when Erdogan is gone? We don’t know. Turkey is not a static country,” Nikos Dendias told Kathimerini daily in an interview.
“In general, our region does not allow for complacency. We have many sources of instability around us that require us to have modern armed forces,” Dendias said.
After years of tension over immigration, energy rights and maritime borders in the Aegean Sea, Greece and Turkey restarted high-level talks last month, when Erdogan paid his first to Athens since 2017.
Greece has the highest defense budget to GDP ratio among all the NATO allies. It has placed multi-billion-euro orders of US-made F-35 fighter jets and French Rafale jets and Belharra frigates.
But Dendias said there was “decades-long dysfunction” in Greece’s aerospace industry and its air force lacked transport planes.
Athens would henceforth commit part of its defense budget “exclusively” to Greek-made weapons for the armed forces, he added.
The minister also bemoaned the fact there were military “units at 25- to 30-percent capacity scattered all over the country.”
“The effectiveness of our armed forces can no longer be something we confirm at parades,” he concluded.
Khalil Wakim, with AFP
