India, Turkey naval wargames begin Sunday
07 Jul 2011
New Delhi: Indian and Turkish navies will commence a two-day exercise in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai beginning Sunday. Both sides are fielding four warships, an Indian Navy officer said Wednesday.
The four Turkish warships will make a port call in Mumbai Thursday, reaching here from Karachi in Pakistan where they had docked a week earlier.
The Turkish flotilla is comprised of frigates TCG (Turkish Republic Ship) Barbaros, TCG Gelibolu, and TCG Gemlik, supported by a fleet tanker TCG YBK Gungor.
The Barbaros runs on the same engine as that of India's latest indigenous stealth frigate INS Shivalik, commissioned last year in Mumbai. The other two Turkish frigates are of the Gabya class.
The warships are in India in the last leg of their Indian Ocean deployment and the Turkish Naval Task Group is headed by Rear Admiral A Sinan Ertugrul.
Indian Navy will be represented in the drill by INS Mumbai, a Delhi-class guided missile destroyer, INS Betwa and INS Brahmaputra, both Beas-class frigates, and a Shishukumar-class HDW diesel-electric submarine.
