US to Supply 'Significant Military Equipment' Soon - Greece's PM Mitsotakis

ATHENS, (Sputnik) - The United States will soon provide Greece with "significant military equipment" for free, announced Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

"I mean not only the approval of [the delivery of] F-35 [fighter jets], which is very important, but also the possibility of getting surplus [military] equipment, significant surplus equipment that will be given to us for free. That is what the US is doing and has every reason to do it to a greater extent for a good ally like Greece," Mitsotakis said in an interview with Greek broadcaster while expressing hope that F-35s would be delivered in 2028.

The prime minister noted that Athens was engaged in talks with Washington, having signed "a very strong defense agreement for five years," adding that he believed Greece hopes for support "regardless of what happens in the negotiations with Turkiye."

Mitsotakis also said that the construction of French-made Belharra-class frigates for Greece was ahead of schedule, adding that the first frigate would be delivered in September.

He noted that Athens are aimed at having "a very strong deterrence capacity," adding that he believed Greece "has been able to achieve that at a rapid pace."

In 2019 and 2021, Washington and Athens amended the Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement, which allowed the US to establish new military bases on the territory of Greece and expanded the term of the agreement from one to five years. Until 2019, the US had only one military base in Greece but now has nine. The US was granted access to the port of Alexandroupolis in the north of the country, which is used for the delivery of military equipment to Eastern Europe and Ukraine. Mitsotakis then said that the amended agreement made Greece Washington's main partner in the region.

Greece is implementing 19 arms procurement programs worth 11.5 billion euros ($12.9 billion). Among them are the purchase of 24 French-made Rafale fighter aircraft, Belharra-class frigates and the modernization of 83 F-16 Block 52+ and 52+ Advanced fighters to the Viper variant — the most advanced variant of F-16. The Greek air force already received two F-16 Viper fighters in September 2022. Moreover, Athens is planning to purchase over 20 F-35 fifth-generation fighters.

In 2021, Greece and France signed a strategic partnership for the delivery of three Belharra-class frigates with the possibility of procuring another frigate. The contracts for the delivery of Naval Group-made frigates, worth 3.237 billion euros, were signed in March 2022. Athens was expecting to receive the first frigate in 2025.

The US Department of Defense has the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program, which allows the sale of no longer-needed equipment to other countries. Under the program, the US supplied the M1117 Guardian Armored Security Vehicles to Greece in 2022-2023.