A shipment of some 3,000 tons of American munitions destined for Israel will not pass through the western Greek port of Astakos, Athens and Washington said yesterday, although the reason behind the decision remained somewhat unclear.

In what has become a politically sensitive issue for the ruling New Democracy party, government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros said yesterday that Greece would not allow Astakos to be used as a location from which to transfer the 325 20-foot containers of ammunition from a US ship to a smaller vessel, which would then have taken them to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

However, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder suggested late Monday that the shipment was canceled because of security concerns related to the conflict in Gaza. But another Pentagon official, Geoff Morrell, told a news conference yesterday that the transfer did not take place because the Greek government “had some objection to offloading the shipment in their country.”