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Turkey Has Borrowed Pakistani F-16 Fighter Jet Pilots As Erdogan Attempts To Fill The ‘Coup’ Void

Inshallah PAF pilots will show Russians, French, Syrians, Armenians, Greeks and Egyptians their place.

Love live Pakistan-Turkiye friendship.
Turkey sought approval from the US to allow non-Turkish nationals to pilot the F-16s, which was promptly turned down by Washington. The US had, however, allowed Saudi and Qatari pilots the Turkish F-16s.

Surprising that US is allowing Qatari pilots. Qatar is a close ally of Turkiye in the region.
 
Stop using childish Indian Propaganda news sites Run by Kindergarten failed journalist.

Here is another Gem from same site:


https://eurasiantimes.com/india-wou...-posts-had-abhinandan-not-been-released-army/
India Would Have Blocked Karachi, Destroyed Pakistan’s Forward Posts Had Abhinandan Not Been Released


India would have certainly taken military action against Pakistan had Islamabad not returned Indian fighter pilot Abhinandan Varthaman after he was captured on the other side of the border following a dogfight after the Balakote strikes, former Deputy Army Chief Lt. Gen. Raj Kadyan told the EurAsian Times.

Kadyan said India had the option of a military strike either by Army, Navy or the Air Force.

“The army didn’t even have to cross the international border or the Line of Control (LoC) unless it was essential. They could have destroyed a couple of Pakistan’s brigade headquarters with long-range weapons, fired from our own territory.

The Indian Navy could have blocked the Karachi port, Pakistan’s Navy is no match with ours,” the former Deputy Army Chief said.

The incident of February 2019 Balakote strike was again in the news after the statement of a Pakistan politician, who in the country’s national assembly said the Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was “shaking and perspiring” during a meeting to discuss Wing Commander Varthaman’s capture.

The Indian Air Force pilot had managed to score a kill, reportedly a Pakistani F-16, a claim denied by Pakistan, before his plane went down in the country and he was captured.

“If required, our Air Force has very sophisticated fighter aircraft, not the MiG-21, which Abhinandan was flying. But we had other aircraft – Jaguars, Sukhois, and others, and Pakistan does not have matching fighters. They possess old F-16s of the Americans, and fall behind India in superiority even in the number of fighter aircraft,” Kadyan told EurAsian Times.

The former Indian Air Force Chief BS Dhanoa also commenting on the Balakote incident said Pakistan had no choice but to return the Indian fighter pilot Abhinandan Varthaman after he was captured on that side of the border after his MiG-21 was downed in a dogfight in February last year.

Speaking to an Indian news agency, Dhanoa said, “The main pressure on Pakistan was diplomatic and political. But there was also a military posture, the way he (Mr Sadiq) is saying that ‘his legs (General Bajwa) were shaking and all’, it is because the military posture was very offensive of all the three services, Army, Navy, Air Force.”

After his Russian-origin jet was shot down, Abhinandan safely ejected only to descend down to Horan village approximately 7 kilometers off the LoC, where a violent mob of villagers captured and beat him up till he was rescued by Pakistan’s Army.

According to Dhanoa, India was ready to ‘wipe out’ Pakistan’s forward bridges had their military response been successful after the Balakote strike. He said the Balakote strike had put fear into Jaish-e-Mohammad and their handlers, adding that India had the capacity to hit them inside the territory of Pakistan.

The Balakote strike was again a hot debate after the speech by the Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Ayaz Sadiq, in which he said the country’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had in an important meeting said if Pakistan did not release Wing Commander Varthaman, India would attack Pakistan “that night by 9 pm.”

“I remember Shah Mahmood Qureshi was in the meeting in which (Prime Minister) Imran Khan had refused to attend and Chief of Army Staff General Bajwa came into the room, his legs were shaking and he was perspiring.

Foreign Minister said for god’s sake let Abhinandan go, India’s about to attack Pakistan at 9 pm,” Mr Sadiq recounted the events of the meeting.

Above is stand up comedy, Please enjoy!
All of these articles are written by an alleged Muslim guy named younis dar, any idea who he js?
Screenshot_20201103_184759.jpg
 
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PAF pilots are experts in flying F-16 fighters.

This is the primary reason why IAF is not selecting F-16/F-21 for MMRCA in spite of F-16/F-21 being a great fighter.
 
Since the 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Air Force has been severely crippled. The main perpetrators are believed to have been from the Turkish Air Force after they unsuccessfully tried to launch a coup.


Nearly 300 Turkish pilots were purged among the thousands of senior armed forces personnel, with some forced to retire, some imprisoned, and others forced to seek asylum in other countries.

The purge served a devastating blow to Turkey’s Air Force and severely undermined the country’s military capabilities. Erdogan is said to have ordered to make up for the shortfall and train a new generation of Turkish pilots, including forcing some to return from retirement or end their contracts with private airlines.

The large-scale ouster of hundreds of pilots in the summer of 2016 had created a crisis for the air force and grounded many warplanes without pilots to fly them.

Turns out, the country’s air force was already facing serious problems even before the coup plot in 2016. The Erdoğan government had introduced a bill back in 2012, which ‘facilitated’ the departure of pilots, who ended up preferring high-paying jobs in the private aviation industry.

The armed forces had then persuaded Erdoğan to reverse the bill and eventually succeeded in getting the government to amend it in 2014 to slow down the bleeding of the force.

“But the damage had been done in the meantime, with 251 pilots asking for retirement or resigning under the 2012 law, which shortened the compulsory service to 13 years,” Nordic Monitor claimed in its January 2020 report.


View attachment 685154


The same report claims that according to the air force’s own internal report dated January 19, 2016, the military needed 554 new pilots including 190 combat pilots to reach its normal level. “The departures had already brought the ratio of pilots to aircraft to 0.65, which is dangerously low, in 2014.”

The country had a shortage of 1,154 military pilots by January 2017, and such a huge shortfall was hard to compensate for. The ratio of pilots to aircraft dropped to 0.37, according to Nordic Monitor.

The government’s efforts to recall some retired pilots or those in private industry were unsuccessful since it was financially unviable for them to come back, and not to forget, the climate of fear in the military over the purges reigned supreme.

Turkey turns to Pakistan
Realizing the crisis could put Ankara in a serious national security predicament the country then turned to its ally Pakistan to train new pilots in a fast-track program and asked the Pakistani government to send trainers to fly F-16s.

Turkey sought approval from the US to allow non-Turkish nationals to pilot the F-16s, which was promptly turned down by Washington. The US had, however, allowed Saudi and Qatari pilots the Turkish F-16s.

The renewed aggression in the East Mediterranean Sea and Turkey’s growing involvement in Middle-East countries demanded full military preparedness. The country is currently militarily involved in many countries, facing major powers in Syria, Libya, and now in the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The Greek media is reporting that Turkey is already employing fighter pilots from Pakistan to fly its F-16s since the two countries started holding joint war drills in the Mediterranean Sea.

This startling revelation has been making rounds in the Greek media since 2017 itself, with leading newspapers reporting the claim. “With the support of Pakistan, the Turkish military is trying to fill big gaps left behind by last year’s (2016) failed coup attempt.

According to sources from the pro-government press of Turkey, Ankara has asked for Pakistan’s help to address the gaps that have arisen in the Turkish Air Force, mainly in the group of pilots of F-16 fighter jets,” Professor Nikos Stelgias wrote in Greece’s leading newspaper Kathimerini wrote in 2017.

Suggesting that Pakistan was providing strong military support to Turkey, one leading Greek journalist Paris Karvounopoulos claimed Erdogan had “borrowed” pilots from Pakistan after the mass purge in the Turkish air force in 2016.

Karvounopoulos has worked for over 20 years as a Greek Foreign Ministry reporter and more than 25 years in Greece’s state-run television station.

EurAsian Times could not independently verify the claims.

“It is well known that the Turkish air force lacks experienced pilots and was recently forced to reinstate retired pilots from the reserve, and has also been seeking help from the Pakistan air force to help make ends meet,” claims another Greek news website Pentapostagma.gr.

Speaking to EurAsian Times, Greece-based journalist Paul Antonopoulos from Greek City Times, which also made the same claim in an article, said the suspicion began to reinforce after November 2019 joint military exercises between Turkey and Pakistan.

“It was noted by military analysts and leading media groups in Greece that Pakistanis were piloting Turkish war jets, and even violated Greek airspace on numerous occasions.”

Paul went on to state this was one of the reasons Greece was seeking more military allies with countries such as India. “It is for this reason, among others too, that Greece is rapidly fostering its relations with India. Not so much that Greece has an expectation that India will involve itself in a potential war with Turkey, but to act as a counterbalance to Pakistan’s willingness to antagonize Greece despite being 5,000 km away.”

In November last year, Greece lashed out at Pakistan for breaching its airspace, during the Dogu Akdeniz-19 (Eastern Mediterranean-2019) joint international naval exercise. The exercise was held to demonstrate the interoperability between the allied nations, Turkey, and Pakistan, according to a Pakistani navy captain quoted by a news agency.

The Turkish defense minister had said, “being the largest exercise ever regarding the number of participants, the 2019 Eastern Mediterranean Exercise is ongoing with participation from almost 4700 personnel and 48 ships from 15 nations.”

Greece charged Pakistan with flying the P-3 Orion aircraft into Greek airspace, which the country said had been the first incident of its kind. The Greek military analysts had realized the exercise had meant the beginning of a deepening new military alliance between Pakistan and Turkey.

The claim was later made by the Turkish media saying that “Pakistani warships will patrol the Eastern Mediterranean,” further antagonizing Athens.

Following the exercise, Turkish media outlet Yeni Safak claimed that Pakistan was going to be “part of the shield” that Turkey had created in the south-eastern Mediterranean.” The reports claimed that Pakistan’s naval vessels – Alamgir frigate and the P-3 aircraft – would continue to patrol the south-eastern Mediterranean along with Turkish naval forces.

Tensions between the neighbors have been on the rise ever since the November 2019 maritime exercise between Turkey and Pakistan.

Turkey’s push to strengthen air defenses
According to the defense analyst Michael Peck from the National Interest, the dismissal of hundreds of F-16 pilots following a coup attempt in 2016 could also explain the Turkish government’s interest in bolstering air defense systems. He claims the purge had led to critical damage to the military capabilities of the country and was, therefore, a grave national security issue.

Many military analysts have also suggested that the weakening air force might have been the driving force behind Turkey being so interested in acquiring missile systems.

Peck writes, “Fighter pilots aren’t cheap.” The US Air Force estimates the training cost for a new pilot to fly a plane like the F-35 to be around $11 million, and the years of experience of a veteran pilot is priceless, he adds in his write-up in the National Interest.

Erdogan’s decision to oust hundreds of fighter pilots in 2016 has been severely criticized by major countries and military analysts alike. They argue it takes millions of dollars and many years to make pilots combat-ready.

Besides, Washington’s refusal to let Turkey rope in Pakistani pilots fly its F-16 jets can be explained by its angst against Erdogan whose decision to purge the country’s air force had put NATO in trouble too.

Peck observed in his article, “So a nation that throws its fighter pilots in jail is not just wasting money, but also an extremely valuable resource. Yet in the name of politics, Turkey’s government has purged its air force so badly that it can barely fly its F-16 fighters.”

And who is flying Pakistani F16s? Indians make any story, any time.
 
then (due to financial constraints) they'd be of same caliber/quality as pajeet airforce.

Why? PAF pilots on deputation in UAE and other countries get paid handsome salaries. May be even better than being paid in Pakistan.
 
The West doesn't want an alliance between Pakistan & Turkey.

If you think that, my dear brother, then you've not fully understood what the "West" really constitutes of.

Pakistan, heed my warning, Turkey isn't what it seems. Even though Erdogan Govt would be true in its intent toward Pakistan, Turkey isn't. It's military has a long established, deep rooted connection with israel. Turkish elite are heavily invested with israel. It doesn't mean that all turkish people are bad, there is good in all of us and evil as well. Just look at the traitors of Pakistan, nawaz, ayaz, zardari, diesel, altaf and bilawal.

But a political-military alliance with Turkey is inadvisable and going deep with such an alliance knowing well that their political class, elites and military are deep rooted relations with israel, would prove detrimental to Pakistan.

Pakistan has remained relatively intact, because it's primary ally has been China, insulated from zionist-israel. Deeper that Pakistan delves into a relationship with Turkey, the greater access israel will have to Pakistan. Turkish relations with Pakistan would far greater of benefit to Israel, than it's alliance with india.

Ignore my warning at your own peril.
 
If you think that, my dear brother, then you've not fully understood what the "West" really constitutes of.

Pakistan, heed my warning, Turkey isn't what it seems. Even though Erdogan Govt would be true in its intent toward Pakistan, Turkey isn't. It's military has a long established, deep rooted connection with israel. Turkish elite are heavily invested with israel. It doesn't mean that all turkish people are bad, there is good in all of us and evil as well. Just look at the traitors of Pakistan, nawaz, ayaz, zardari, diesel, altaf and bilawal.

But a political-military alliance with Turkey is inadvisable and going deep with such an alliance knowing well that their political class, elites and military are deep rooted relations with israel, would prove detrimental to Pakistan.

Pakistan has remained relatively intact, because it's primary ally has been China, insulated from zionist-israel. Deeper that Pakistan delves into a relationship with Turkey, the greater access israel will have to Pakistan. Turkish relations with Pakistan would far greater of benefit to Israel, than it's alliance with india.

Ignore my warning at your own peril.
Does your second name starts with letter I ? I know another guy with same thoughts.
 
except for the fact that it is not TRUE. it is another pajeet brainfart by Binod Kumar Editor – EurAsian Times. first it was imaginary Pakistani soldiers "fighting" Armenians, now it is Pakistani air-force that has provided replacements for 300 Turkish pilots.

do you know how much it costs to train a Pakistani F-16 pilot? tip: it is not as cheap as in bharat where they pick a rickshaw puller and put him in charge an airplane.

in total Pakistan has had no more than 120 F-16 pilots at any one time but according to gungoos they've provided 300 to Turkey, does it make sense? NO, it does NOT
But Pakistani pilots that serve overseas usually are retired from PAF.

Yes its more than likely a false report
 
Since the 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Air Force has been severely crippled. The main perpetrators are believed to have been from the Turkish Air Force after they unsuccessfully tried to launch a coup.


Nearly 300 Turkish pilots were purged among the thousands of senior armed forces personnel, with some forced to retire, some imprisoned, and others forced to seek asylum in other countries.

The purge served a devastating blow to Turkey’s Air Force and severely undermined the country’s military capabilities. Erdogan is said to have ordered to make up for the shortfall and train a new generation of Turkish pilots, including forcing some to return from retirement or end their contracts with private airlines.

The large-scale ouster of hundreds of pilots in the summer of 2016 had created a crisis for the air force and grounded many warplanes without pilots to fly them.

Turns out, the country’s air force was already facing serious problems even before the coup plot in 2016. The Erdoğan government had introduced a bill back in 2012, which ‘facilitated’ the departure of pilots, who ended up preferring high-paying jobs in the private aviation industry.

The armed forces had then persuaded Erdoğan to reverse the bill and eventually succeeded in getting the government to amend it in 2014 to slow down the bleeding of the force.

“But the damage had been done in the meantime, with 251 pilots asking for retirement or resigning under the 2012 law, which shortened the compulsory service to 13 years,” Nordic Monitor claimed in its January 2020 report.


View attachment 685154


The same report claims that according to the air force’s own internal report dated January 19, 2016, the military needed 554 new pilots including 190 combat pilots to reach its normal level. “The departures had already brought the ratio of pilots to aircraft to 0.65, which is dangerously low, in 2014.”

The country had a shortage of 1,154 military pilots by January 2017, and such a huge shortfall was hard to compensate for. The ratio of pilots to aircraft dropped to 0.37, according to Nordic Monitor.

The government’s efforts to recall some retired pilots or those in private industry were unsuccessful since it was financially unviable for them to come back, and not to forget, the climate of fear in the military over the purges reigned supreme.

Turkey turns to Pakistan
Realizing the crisis could put Ankara in a serious national security predicament the country then turned to its ally Pakistan to train new pilots in a fast-track program and asked the Pakistani government to send trainers to fly F-16s.

Turkey sought approval from the US to allow non-Turkish nationals to pilot the F-16s, which was promptly turned down by Washington. The US had, however, allowed Saudi and Qatari pilots the Turkish F-16s.

The renewed aggression in the East Mediterranean Sea and Turkey’s growing involvement in Middle-East countries demanded full military preparedness. The country is currently militarily involved in many countries, facing major powers in Syria, Libya, and now in the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The Greek media is reporting that Turkey is already employing fighter pilots from Pakistan to fly its F-16s since the two countries started holding joint war drills in the Mediterranean Sea.

This startling revelation has been making rounds in the Greek media since 2017 itself, with leading newspapers reporting the claim. “With the support of Pakistan, the Turkish military is trying to fill big gaps left behind by last year’s (2016) failed coup attempt.

According to sources from the pro-government press of Turkey, Ankara has asked for Pakistan’s help to address the gaps that have arisen in the Turkish Air Force, mainly in the group of pilots of F-16 fighter jets,” Professor Nikos Stelgias wrote in Greece’s leading newspaper Kathimerini wrote in 2017.

Suggesting that Pakistan was providing strong military support to Turkey, one leading Greek journalist Paris Karvounopoulos claimed Erdogan had “borrowed” pilots from Pakistan after the mass purge in the Turkish air force in 2016.

Karvounopoulos has worked for over 20 years as a Greek Foreign Ministry reporter and more than 25 years in Greece’s state-run television station.

EurAsian Times could not independently verify the claims.

“It is well known that the Turkish air force lacks experienced pilots and was recently forced to reinstate retired pilots from the reserve, and has also been seeking help from the Pakistan air force to help make ends meet,” claims another Greek news website Pentapostagma.gr.

Speaking to EurAsian Times, Greece-based journalist Paul Antonopoulos from Greek City Times, which also made the same claim in an article, said the suspicion began to reinforce after November 2019 joint military exercises between Turkey and Pakistan.

“It was noted by military analysts and leading media groups in Greece that Pakistanis were piloting Turkish war jets, and even violated Greek airspace on numerous occasions.”

Paul went on to state this was one of the reasons Greece was seeking more military allies with countries such as India. “It is for this reason, among others too, that Greece is rapidly fostering its relations with India. Not so much that Greece has an expectation that India will involve itself in a potential war with Turkey, but to act as a counterbalance to Pakistan’s willingness to antagonize Greece despite being 5,000 km away.”

In November last year, Greece lashed out at Pakistan for breaching its airspace, during the Dogu Akdeniz-19 (Eastern Mediterranean-2019) joint international naval exercise. The exercise was held to demonstrate the interoperability between the allied nations, Turkey, and Pakistan, according to a Pakistani navy captain quoted by a news agency.

The Turkish defense minister had said, “being the largest exercise ever regarding the number of participants, the 2019 Eastern Mediterranean Exercise is ongoing with participation from almost 4700 personnel and 48 ships from 15 nations.”

Greece charged Pakistan with flying the P-3 Orion aircraft into Greek airspace, which the country said had been the first incident of its kind. The Greek military analysts had realized the exercise had meant the beginning of a deepening new military alliance between Pakistan and Turkey.

The claim was later made by the Turkish media saying that “Pakistani warships will patrol the Eastern Mediterranean,” further antagonizing Athens.

Following the exercise, Turkish media outlet Yeni Safak claimed that Pakistan was going to be “part of the shield” that Turkey had created in the south-eastern Mediterranean.” The reports claimed that Pakistan’s naval vessels – Alamgir frigate and the P-3 aircraft – would continue to patrol the south-eastern Mediterranean along with Turkish naval forces.

Tensions between the neighbors have been on the rise ever since the November 2019 maritime exercise between Turkey and Pakistan.

Turkey’s push to strengthen air defenses
According to the defense analyst Michael Peck from the National Interest, the dismissal of hundreds of F-16 pilots following a coup attempt in 2016 could also explain the Turkish government’s interest in bolstering air defense systems. He claims the purge had led to critical damage to the military capabilities of the country and was, therefore, a grave national security issue.

Many military analysts have also suggested that the weakening air force might have been the driving force behind Turkey being so interested in acquiring missile systems.

Peck writes, “Fighter pilots aren’t cheap.” The US Air Force estimates the training cost for a new pilot to fly a plane like the F-35 to be around $11 million, and the years of experience of a veteran pilot is priceless, he adds in his write-up in the National Interest.

Erdogan’s decision to oust hundreds of fighter pilots in 2016 has been severely criticized by major countries and military analysts alike. They argue it takes millions of dollars and many years to make pilots combat-ready.

Besides, Washington’s refusal to let Turkey rope in Pakistani pilots fly its F-16 jets can be explained by its angst against Erdogan whose decision to purge the country’s air force had put NATO in trouble too.

Peck observed in his article, “So a nation that throws its fighter pilots in jail is not just wasting money, but also an extremely valuable resource. Yet in the name of politics, Turkey’s government has purged its air force so badly that it can barely fly its F-16 fighters.”

should we move it to funny and stupid thread or make a new thread called stupid and retarded section?
you could've included Afghanistan airforce pilots to make it more believable in a La La Land News.
 
Since the 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Air Force has been severely crippled. The main perpetrators are believed to have been from the Turkish Air Force after they unsuccessfully tried to launch a coup.


Nearly 300 Turkish pilots were purged among the thousands of senior armed forces personnel, with some forced to retire, some imprisoned, and others forced to seek asylum in other countries.

The purge served a devastating blow to Turkey’s Air Force and severely undermined the country’s military capabilities. Erdogan is said to have ordered to make up for the shortfall and train a new generation of Turkish pilots, including forcing some to return from retirement or end their contracts with private airlines.

The large-scale ouster of hundreds of pilots in the summer of 2016 had created a crisis for the air force and grounded many warplanes without pilots to fly them.

Turns out, the country’s air force was already facing serious problems even before the coup plot in 2016. The Erdoğan government had introduced a bill back in 2012, which ‘facilitated’ the departure of pilots, who ended up preferring high-paying jobs in the private aviation industry.

The armed forces had then persuaded Erdoğan to reverse the bill and eventually succeeded in getting the government to amend it in 2014 to slow down the bleeding of the force.

“But the damage had been done in the meantime, with 251 pilots asking for retirement or resigning under the 2012 law, which shortened the compulsory service to 13 years,” Nordic Monitor claimed in its January 2020 report.


View attachment 685154


The same report claims that according to the air force’s own internal report dated January 19, 2016, the military needed 554 new pilots including 190 combat pilots to reach its normal level. “The departures had already brought the ratio of pilots to aircraft to 0.65, which is dangerously low, in 2014.”

The country had a shortage of 1,154 military pilots by January 2017, and such a huge shortfall was hard to compensate for. The ratio of pilots to aircraft dropped to 0.37, according to Nordic Monitor.

The government’s efforts to recall some retired pilots or those in private industry were unsuccessful since it was financially unviable for them to come back, and not to forget, the climate of fear in the military over the purges reigned supreme.

Turkey turns to Pakistan
Realizing the crisis could put Ankara in a serious national security predicament the country then turned to its ally Pakistan to train new pilots in a fast-track program and asked the Pakistani government to send trainers to fly F-16s.

Turkey sought approval from the US to allow non-Turkish nationals to pilot the F-16s, which was promptly turned down by Washington. The US had, however, allowed Saudi and Qatari pilots the Turkish F-16s.

The renewed aggression in the East Mediterranean Sea and Turkey’s growing involvement in Middle-East countries demanded full military preparedness. The country is currently militarily involved in many countries, facing major powers in Syria, Libya, and now in the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The Greek media is reporting that Turkey is already employing fighter pilots from Pakistan to fly its F-16s since the two countries started holding joint war drills in the Mediterranean Sea.

This startling revelation has been making rounds in the Greek media since 2017 itself, with leading newspapers reporting the claim. “With the support of Pakistan, the Turkish military is trying to fill big gaps left behind by last year’s (2016) failed coup attempt.

According to sources from the pro-government press of Turkey, Ankara has asked for Pakistan’s help to address the gaps that have arisen in the Turkish Air Force, mainly in the group of pilots of F-16 fighter jets,” Professor Nikos Stelgias wrote in Greece’s leading newspaper Kathimerini wrote in 2017.

Suggesting that Pakistan was providing strong military support to Turkey, one leading Greek journalist Paris Karvounopoulos claimed Erdogan had “borrowed” pilots from Pakistan after the mass purge in the Turkish air force in 2016.

Karvounopoulos has worked for over 20 years as a Greek Foreign Ministry reporter and more than 25 years in Greece’s state-run television station.

EurAsian Times could not independently verify the claims.

“It is well known that the Turkish air force lacks experienced pilots and was recently forced to reinstate retired pilots from the reserve, and has also been seeking help from the Pakistan air force to help make ends meet,” claims another Greek news website Pentapostagma.gr.

Speaking to EurAsian Times, Greece-based journalist Paul Antonopoulos from Greek City Times, which also made the same claim in an article, said the suspicion began to reinforce after November 2019 joint military exercises between Turkey and Pakistan.

“It was noted by military analysts and leading media groups in Greece that Pakistanis were piloting Turkish war jets, and even violated Greek airspace on numerous occasions.”

Paul went on to state this was one of the reasons Greece was seeking more military allies with countries such as India. “It is for this reason, among others too, that Greece is rapidly fostering its relations with India. Not so much that Greece has an expectation that India will involve itself in a potential war with Turkey, but to act as a counterbalance to Pakistan’s willingness to antagonize Greece despite being 5,000 km away.”

In November last year, Greece lashed out at Pakistan for breaching its airspace, during the Dogu Akdeniz-19 (Eastern Mediterranean-2019) joint international naval exercise. The exercise was held to demonstrate the interoperability between the allied nations, Turkey, and Pakistan, according to a Pakistani navy captain quoted by a news agency.

The Turkish defense minister had said, “being the largest exercise ever regarding the number of participants, the 2019 Eastern Mediterranean Exercise is ongoing with participation from almost 4700 personnel and 48 ships from 15 nations.”

Greece charged Pakistan with flying the P-3 Orion aircraft into Greek airspace, which the country said had been the first incident of its kind. The Greek military analysts had realized the exercise had meant the beginning of a deepening new military alliance between Pakistan and Turkey.

The claim was later made by the Turkish media saying that “Pakistani warships will patrol the Eastern Mediterranean,” further antagonizing Athens.

Following the exercise, Turkish media outlet Yeni Safak claimed that Pakistan was going to be “part of the shield” that Turkey had created in the south-eastern Mediterranean.” The reports claimed that Pakistan’s naval vessels – Alamgir frigate and the P-3 aircraft – would continue to patrol the south-eastern Mediterranean along with Turkish naval forces.

Tensions between the neighbors have been on the rise ever since the November 2019 maritime exercise between Turkey and Pakistan.

Turkey’s push to strengthen air defenses
According to the defense analyst Michael Peck from the National Interest, the dismissal of hundreds of F-16 pilots following a coup attempt in 2016 could also explain the Turkish government’s interest in bolstering air defense systems. He claims the purge had led to critical damage to the military capabilities of the country and was, therefore, a grave national security issue.

Many military analysts have also suggested that the weakening air force might have been the driving force behind Turkey being so interested in acquiring missile systems.

Peck writes, “Fighter pilots aren’t cheap.” The US Air Force estimates the training cost for a new pilot to fly a plane like the F-35 to be around $11 million, and the years of experience of a veteran pilot is priceless, he adds in his write-up in the National Interest.

Erdogan’s decision to oust hundreds of fighter pilots in 2016 has been severely criticized by major countries and military analysts alike. They argue it takes millions of dollars and many years to make pilots combat-ready.

Besides, Washington’s refusal to let Turkey rope in Pakistani pilots fly its F-16 jets can be explained by its angst against Erdogan whose decision to purge the country’s air force had put NATO in trouble too.

Peck observed in his article, “So a nation that throws its fighter pilots in jail is not just wasting money, but also an extremely valuable resource. Yet in the name of politics, Turkey’s government has purged its air force so badly that it can barely fly its F-16 fighters.”

This is good bullshit
 
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