First delivery of ASVs from US

The Hellenic Army officially took delivery of the first M1117 armored security vehicles from the US at a ceremony in Athens yesterday. The army is expected to receive 1,200 of the ASVs, at no cost, from the US military under the Excess Defense Articles program. At the ceremony, which took place at the 301 Base in Agioi Anargyroi, Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said that “the M1117 ASVs will give a new lease of life to the operational design of our army formations, enabling them to carry out a wide range of missions.” “Greece’s geopolitical environment and the threats it faces in the region of Evros, in the Aegean and in the wider Eastern Mediterranean, oblige us to be constantly on the alert and to maintain our deterrent capacity at a high level.” US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt expressed his “enormous pride at the tremendous progress which we have achieved in the interoperability and the partnership between our armed forces.” “That interoperability is demonstrated every week across the Hellenic Republic, from the exercises that we witnessed last week with our special forces working together through what we will do tomorrow in Alexandroupoli, where our forces are working together on the largest ever transfer of equipment through that strategically located port,” Pyatt said.