Turkey building naval warship for Pakistan, says President Erdogan
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was attending a dual ceremony to commission the new Turkish naval ship TCG Kinaliada and the MILGEM (Turkish national warship programme)-class ship for Pakistan.
Turkey has begun work on building a naval warship which will be sold to Pakistan as part of a deal signed in 2018, a media report said on Monday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the announcement during a ceremony on Sunday to mark the commencement for the construction of the warship named MILGEM, Geo News reported.
“I hope that Pakistan benefits from the the naval warship that was being provided to it by Turkey,” the report quoted him as saying during the ceremony.
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Pakistan Navy Commander Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi and Erdogan cut the first metal plate of the first of the four MILGEM Ada class corvette during the ceremony.
While two corvettes will be built in Turkey, the next two will be built in Pakistan through technology transfer.
MILGEM vessels are 99 metres long, have a displacement capacity of 24,00 tons and a speed of 29 nautical miles.
In July 2018, Pakistan Navy had signed a contract for the acquisition of four MILGEM-class ships from Turkey.
Erdogan impressed upon the audience that Pakistan-Turkey relations had great potential for cooperation in the field of defence production.
According to Erdogan, Turkey is one of only 10 countries worldwide that is able to build, design, and maintain warships using national capabilities.
Erdogan also commissioned a new naval warship into the Turkish Navy on the occasion and hailed the warship building capabilities of the Turkish defense industry.
(With agency inputs)