Will Erdogan address Greece's military upgrades during visit?
A US sale of F-16 fighter upgrade kits to Greece's outdated fleet could increase tensions with Turkey, or it could be offset by the Turkish president's historic visit to Athens this week.
It's unclear what effect Greece's pending F-16 upgrades might have on the country's ties with Turkey, but the often-antagonistic nature of their relationship is unlikely to change much.
The United States and Greece recently agreed to an upgrade of Greece’s F-16s at an estimated cost of $2.4 billion, although the final price hasn't been determined. The sale includes more than 120 upgrade kits from Lockheed Martin to retrofit Greece’s fourth-generation fighter jets.
“Greece has always been a reliable ally, and we’ve always been very reliable to them,” US President Donald Trump declared at an Oct. 17 joint press conference on the White House lawn. At the adjacent podium, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras added that the countries' bilateral relations were “at their best since World War II.”
Dimitris Tsarouhas, an associate professor in the department of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, told Al-Monitor, “Tsipras' visit to the US was a foreign policy success for a government that is under domestic pressure. The secured deal is one that Greece had requested for some time.”
