The US plans to sell as many as 40 F-35 jets to Greece and will also gift the country various defense equipment, according to a letter sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The move comes as the US State Department said Friday that it had approved the long-delayed sale of F-16 warplanes to Turkey in a delicately orchestrated arrangement with Ankara supporting Sweden’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In addition to the sale of the F-35 jets, the US plans to give Greece two C-130H aircrafts, 10 engines for P-3 aircrafts and 60 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles for free from its excess defense articles.

  • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    We’ll sell you 40 F35 and a free gift, so that you can defend against the 40 F16s that we sold to your enemy last week (as well as upgrades to 79 of them that they already had

    • 5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      I wonder if this certainly sophisticated sale will then again finance frozen aid to Ukraine and Israel, thus elegantly MIC-handling the Mediterranean and Black seas past dysfunctional/democratic US-American Washington. /s

      • stevehobbes@lemy.lol
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        The F16/ to turkey was quid pro quo for Turkey to let Finland Sweden into nato. Which of course made the Greeks unhappy, so we sold them weapons so they weren’t unhappy and could defend against Turkish aggression. It also makes them a more capable ally.

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    11 months ago

    40 F-35s seems excessive for a country the size of Greece. Those things are not cheap.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      11 months ago

      They are in conflict with Turkey over Cyprus. Greece and Turkey thus have outsized militaries compared to the rest of the region.

  • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    11 months ago

    Everyone is getting new planes. This must mean they are upgrading their old fleet to new environment friendly electric jets!