Athens may be added as an intermediate stop in the tour of the American Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken in the wider region, as Mr. Blinken is expected to be in Turkey this Saturday.
In Greece he will be meeting the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, as his program has been changing continuously over the last few hours.
Blinken’s visit to Turkey is directly related to the tough diplomatic bargain between Turkey and the US over Gaza, F16 and Sweden.
Washington is eyeing the Turkish National Assembly’s resumption of work on January 15, when it will be revealed whether Turkey continues its blackmail to the end, claiming an earlier US move for the F16s in order for Ankara to ratify Sweden’s Accession Protocol in NATO.
This process is closely monitored by Athens as the outcome of the “bargain” seems to affect Greece’s request to purchase F-35s.
While Turkey itself has officially linked the process of selling and upgrading the F-16s to the case of ratifying Sweden’s NATO accession protocol, it is now blackmailing the US by essentially demanding that the decision of Congress be preceded before completing the pending process by the plenary session of the National Assembly and its signature by President Erdogan.
US Secretary of State A. Blinken is expected to call for the completion of Sweden’s NATO accession process, warning Ankara that otherwise it will be extremely difficult to put pressure on Congress to approve the F-16 deal and at the same time it will not be easy to keep Greece on the “waiting list” for the F-35 for a long time.
The interconnection of the sale of F-16s to Turkey and the agreement for F-35s in Greece is something that worries Athens as its defense cooperation with the US, which has been strengthened in recent years, should not depend on such outside factors.
Of course for the Americans an F-35 sale agreement to Greece is a constant threat to Turkey as Ankara has been expelled from the F-35 program due to the purchase of the S400 and it is obvious that the combination of the Rafale with the acquisition of the advanced aircraft fifth generation F-35 will consolidate Greece’s air superiority.
2024: Where does the pendulum swing? – Analysis
The Americans are using this argument in order to pressure Ankara to proceed immediately with the approval of Sweden’s accession, but without being able to offer concrete commitments not only for the possibility of a return to the F-35 program but not even for the F-16 deal. On the other hand, however, the American government will not be able to keep Greece’s request for the purchase of F-35 frozen indefinitely.
It is also questionable whether Washington will attempt to link the sale of F-16s to Turkey with conditions that will also concern the need to respect the territorial sovereignty of the allies and avoid aggressive actions using the specific fighters against Greece, as the conditions that Senator Menendez had formulated prior to his removal as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee provided.
For Greece, the short delay in the approval of the decision to sell the F-35s is not catastrophic as it will be able to be combined with the country’s fiscal capabilities, but politically it is problematic as Ankara is indirectly obtaining a “veto” in a major issue of the Greek-American relations. And this is something that should be prevented.
