Turkey soon to export home-built warship: Minister

ANKARA

Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli

Turkey is in the final stages of clinching an agreement on the export of four indigenous warships to a country, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said on June 4.

Canikli noted that this would be the largest defense export of Turkey in one agreement.

“We have been in the final talks to export four MİLGEM corvettes. When this agreement is finalized, we will be making Turkey’s largest defense export at once and for all. Its cost will amount to almost one quarter of Turkey’s total agricultural exports,” he told journalists in Ankara, referring to the country’s MİLGEM (National Ship) project to develop indigenous warships.

He, however, did not mention the name of the country to which the warships will be sold.

The MİLGEM project covers the construction of a number of corvettes (Ada class) and frigates for the Turkish Navy.

Until now, four warships were commissioned and the fifth one is under construction, Canikli said.

“The construction of the three others will start in the upcoming days,” he added.

The indigenous “Ada-class” naval corvettes, which are 99.5 meters in length, have been designed to carry out various missions such as surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, air defense, surveillance and reconnaissance, command-control and asymmetric defense warfare missions.

The first was the TCG Heybeliada (F-511), launched in 2008.

The ships, which are named after the Princes’ Islands off Istanbul, are designed for search and rescue, patrol and anti-submarine warfare duties and are armed with a 76-millimeter gun, missiles and torpedoes.