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According to military sources, by selling 192 Leopard 1 A5 tanks to Greece while at the same time denying their transfer to Turkey, Germany has upset the balance between Ankara and Athens in favor of Greece. Senior Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) generals held a press conference yesterday in Ankara to respond to press criticism over the attack helicopter and MBT projects as well as Turkey's increased spending on arms. Gen. Celal Gurkan (Rtd.), in briefing the press over the current situation of arms in the TSK inventory, recalled that some of the arms transferred to Turkey before 1990 as surplus equipment by other countries are today between 30 and 40 years old and becoming either obsolete or uneconomical to use. Many countries surrounding Turkey have either been maintaining or increasing their military forces, Gurkan said, adding that the total number of tanks in the inventories of the countries in the region is around 10,000, along with approximately 1,700 combat aircraft and 300 attack helicopters. (Turkish Daily News)
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Turkey
is uneasy over Germany's refusal to sell 150 Leopard 1 A5 tanks to
Turkey, while allowing the sale of 192 of the same tanks to Greece.
Turkish-German relations were already soured when the German coalition
government turned down a request by German company Krauss-Maffei
Wegmann on March 14 for an export license guarantee for its Leopard 2
tanks competing in Turkey's $7 billion third generation main battle
tank (MBT) co-production project.