Greece signed a $3.6 billion defence agreement called the ‘Achilles Shield’ with Israel on Monday.
The defence pact signed in Tel Aviv has been under negotiation for three years. It will provide the European country with its first integrated and multi-layer air defence network.
The agreements are to be signed between the Greece’s General Directorate of Defense Armaments and Investments (GDAEE) of the Ministry of National Defense and SIBAT, the Directorate of International Defense Cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
The pact has been signed just as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan meet in Istanbul for the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Strategic Political and Defence Committee under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. The agreement was signed by the three countries on August 7. The accord establishes a collective-defence principle under which an armed attack against one signatory is considered an attack against all three.
Greece’s new program will combine radar, sensors and different interception systems with the aim of addressing a wide range of threats. The deal also places an emphasis on dealing with drones.
The system is designed to be able to deal with everything from unmanned aerial vehicles and fighter jets to cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, CNN greece reported. the Achilles shield will also include Israeli-made SPYDER, Barak MX, and David's Sling air defence systems.
The country's new defence dome is expected to be completed within 35 months and will be interconnected with the existing capabilities of the Greek Armed Forces. About 25 per cent of the pact also includes Greece’s own participation in the development of new defence architecture.
Greece is developing an artificial intelligence-powered Command and Control (C2) network designed to combine data from existing Greek sensors and radars with NATO-standard information from Greek F-16s and F-35s, which will be fed into the Achilles Shield system.
For Greece, the pact comes as a response to its tensions with Ankara over maritime boundaries in the Aegean Sea.
For Israel, the Achilles Shield pact offers it access to the European Union. In 2015, Greece had become the second country to sign a military deal wth Israel.
The Mecca Pact, meanwhile, brought together the three Sunni Muslim countries over concerns about the Iran war and the wider regional conflict in the Middle East. The pact, signed on August 7, brought together Saudi Arabia, which is an economic heavyweight and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country.
The parallel development of the both defence deals shows an overlapping of regional tensions.
The three nations also share concerns about the military stance of Israel.
The Mecca Pact is similar to NATO’s Article 5 collective defence clause that says that an attack against any of the three would be regarded as an attack against all.
Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli told the Middle East Eye that the Mecca Pact could “have extremely serious consequences both in the Mediterranean and on the Syrian front," and that “it requires us to deepen our alliances with Greece, Cyprus, the UAE, Somaliland and India."
Netanyahu calls the maritime-focused partnerships with Greece, Cyprus, the UAE, Somaliland and India a ‘hexagon of alliances’.
