Minister Nikos Dendias said in an interview with Kathimerini daily, “What will happen to Turkey when Erdogan leaves? We do not know. Turkey is not a stable country.”
He explained, “Stability is always destabilized during the succession of a strong, long-ruling leader… This means that we must prepare for any eventuality before 2030.”
The minister said, “In general, there is no room for complacency in our region. There are several sources of destabilization around us that require our armed forces to be modern.”
After years of tensions over migration, rights to exploit energy resources, and maritime borders in the Aegean Sea, Turkey and Greece resumed high-level talks last month after Erdogan’s first visit to Athens since 2017.
Greece's defense budget as a percentage of the country's GDP is the highest compared to the rest of the NATO countries. Athens has placed orders worth billions of euros to buy American F-35 fighters, Rafale aircraft, and French Plara frigates.
But Dendias pointed to a “decades-old defect” in Greece's aviation industry, and that the air force lacks transport aircraft.
He added that Athens will henceforth allocate part of its defense budget “exclusively” to Greek-made weapons for the armed forces.
The minister regretted that “units operating at 25 to 30 percent of their capabilities are spread throughout the country,” calling for increasing the effectiveness of the Greek Armed Forces.
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