ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Greece on Monday signed a € 2.3 billion ($ 2.8 billion) deal with France to buy 18 Rafale fighter jets, as tensions remain high with neighboring Turkey.
Florence Parly, the French Minister of Defense, signed the agreement in Athens to deliver 12 used and six new aircraft manufactured by Dassault Aviation in two years, starting in July.
France has sided with Greece in a dispute over the borders in the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean that has brought NATO members Greece and Turkey to the brink of war several times in recent decades.
Tension rose again last summer when a Turkish exploration mission in disputed waters sparked a dangerous military build-up.
Greece and Turkey have agreed to restart talks aimed at resolving the dispute peacefully. Senior diplomats from the two countries met in Istanbul on Monday to resume the process that had been interrupted for nearly five years.
But Athens says it will continue with a multi-million-euro program to upgrade its armies after years of cuts due to the country’s financial crisis.
France and the United States are competing to provide new frigates to the Greek navy, while the Greek government has recently approved plans to cooperate with Israeli defense electronic firm Elbit Systems to create a new military flight academy in southern Greece.
“Upgrading the capabilities of the Hellenic Air Force through the acquisition of new fighter jets and the new state-of-the-art training center is critical for Greece to present credible deterrence,” said Michael Tanchum, a member senior at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy, he told The Associated Press.
“It also provides Athens with an enhanced capacity to exercise more strategic autonomy when EU and NATO frameworks are deemed inadequate, making Greece a full-fledged actor.”
From May, compulsory national service in the Greek Armed Forces will increase again to twelve months to increase the number of people serving uniforms. Parly, who also met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, announced that France would join two Greek military exercises later this year, participating with Rafale aircraft of the French Air Force.
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