"Turkey was a co-producer of the F-35 fighters, they were going to take 100 fighters, they were going to turn the Aegean into a souvlaki. The upgrade (with F-35) will give Greece a huge strategic advantage in terms of air warfare," the former National Security Advisor, retired Vice Admiral, told SKAI. Alexandros Diakopoulos.
"The F-35 is stealth, it cannot be picked up by radar," he said, among other things, about the advantages of the state-of-the-art fighter.
He explained, however, that the F-35 is not ready for delivery, there is a production line, it will be ready for delivery by the manufacturer Lockheed Martin in 2027 to 2028, but our country in 2028 will have the necessary fiscal space, as the F-16 upgrades will have been completed. "It is not only the purchase that is $80 million (each fighter), it is also the flight time that is very expensive," he acknowledged. But as production increases, Diakopoulos explained, the flight time is gradually coming down. "Defence is expensive. We pay a huge tax to have security with the neighbor we have," he said.
"Politics of blackmail"
"Turkey's policy is one of blackmail and bargaining," Mr.
The resort to blackmail by a country is not a sign of influence and power, it is a sign of failure, it is a sign of the reduction of the influence it once had on its neighbour, he explained.
"Turkey has the second largest army, an extremely important country in terms of its size, in terms of its geographic and geopolitical position, and it has reached the point of being able to blackmail on the one hand, and on the other hand it cannot even achieve the upgrade of its F-16s, not even the acquisition of new F-16s," he explained.
Source: protothema.gr
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