Greece to retire missile defenses deployed amid Gulf war to Karpathos, Evros

The Patriot aerial defence rocket system. [File photo]

Greece will withdraw aerial defence systems deployed astatine the start of this year’s US and Israeli attacks connected Iran to the eastbound borderline with Turkey, whose beingness caused consternation successful Ankara, reports said Monday.

State ERT television said the determination was taken during a league of the Government Council connected National Security, oregon KYSEA, under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. 

ERT said KYSEA approved withdrawal of the US-made Patriot rocket systems from Didymoteicho, connected the northeastern onshore border, and the southeastern Aegean Sea land of Karpathos.

The determination was dictated by “the alteration successful geopolitical conditions,” ERT said.

The Patriot rocket batteries were deployed to Karpathos and Didymoteicho successful March, to supply defenses against imaginable incoming Iranian ballistic missiles oregon one-way drones aft a suspected Iranian drone exploded connected a British subject basal successful Cyprus. The Evros deployment was decided to supply sum for chap NATO subordinate Bulgaria.

Neither of the batteries saw action.

Greece besides deployed two frigates and 4 F-16 combatant jets to Cyprus arsenic information concerns escalated astir the Mediterranean Sea island. 

Turkey’s Defense Ministry had deplored the Karpathos deployment, arguing that the land and others successful the eastbound Aegean Sea should stay demilitarized under the planetary treaty that ceded them to Greece aft World War II, while the Turkish Foreign Ministry besides objected to the rocket deployment.

Athens rejected the protests arsenic unfounded.

Monday’s KYSEA league besides approved the purchase, under Greece’s ample subject procurement program, of 4 secondhand Italian FREMM frigates successful a two-phase deal. The archetypal two Carlo Bergamini-class vessels are expected to outgo €700 million. KYSEA besides approved the modernization of Greece’s aged 4 MEKO-class frigates astatine the Skaramangas shipyards.

It was besides decided to nonstop a twelfth surplus US-made M113 armored unit bearer to Lebanon, under a bilateral agreement.