Indian Navy And Turkish Navy To Hold Wargames Beginning Sunday

Indian and Turkish navies will embark on a two-day major war game in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai beginning Sunday, when four warships from each side will match their sea battle skills, an Indian Navy officer said Wednesday.

The four Turkish warships that will join the exercise are scheduled to make a port call in Mumbai Thursday, reaching here from Karachi port in Pakistan where they had docked a week earlier.

Frigates TCG (Turkish Republic Ship) Barbaros, TCG Gelibolu, and TCG Gemlik, supported by a fleet tanker TCG YBK Gungor will be the Turkish ensemble for the war game, the officer said.
Incidentally, Barbaros runs on the same engine as that of India's latest indigenous stealth frigate INS Shivalik that was 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 this 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. The air element in the exercise will be an Indian Navy Dornier maritime patrol aircraft, the officer said.

'The exercise will include anti-submarine warfare, coordinated strike and interdiction drills, besides other manoeuvres in the seas that are expected to be fairly rough,' he added.

The Turkish Navy, which is part of the anti-piracy Nato-sponsored Combined Task Force-151, has led the mission a number of times. A Turkish navy frigate TCG Giresun was recently part of a joint effort with Indian Navy Dornier aircraft in thwarting a pirate attack on a Chinese-owned bulk carrier MV Full City in the Arabian Sea in the first week of May.

Indian Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma was in Turkey from June 13 to 16, while the Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik was there in April 2010. Turkish Naval Forces commander Admiral Esref Yugur Yigit visited India in December 2010 on a reciprocal visit.Turkey has a fairly respectable naval ship-building industry and India sees a possibility of mutual cooperation in this area.

(source IANS)

Turkish General Arrested On Charges Of Conspiracy To Topple The Government

A senior general who was expected to become the new air force commander this summer has been detained on charges of conspiracy to topple the government, a senior military official said May 31.

An Istanbul court May 30 arrested Air Force Gen. Bilgin Balanli, commander of the War Academy, accusing him of involvement in a plan to overthrow the government of Islamist-leaning Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Balanli is the most senior Air Force general and, therefore, the strongest candidate to become the service commander in an annual reshuffle in August.

Dozens of duty and retired officers are currently in jail on similar charges, but Balanli is the only active-duty full general.

"The charges against him effectively means that General Balanli has lost chances of becoming the next commander. And this situation raises serious questions regarding who else can take over," the military official said.

In recent years, the prime minister blocked the promotion of officers who were charged with plotting a coup or trying to topple his government.

"One option is to extend the term of the current commander for one year until another full general takes over," he said.

Air Force Commander Gen. Hasan Aksay was set to retire after this year's reshuffle.

Erdogan's government and the military have been long disputed religion's role in politics and public life. In recent years, the government has prevailed in this rift through legislation and judicial proceedings against what prosecutors indict as coup-plotting officers.

This is a serious development because the military in Turkey has kept the society free and fare. They have kept Turkey away from religious fundamentalism but now Turkish military itself is being destroyed.If this trend continues turkey will pose a grave risk to European security and stability.

Turkey Modernizes German Leopard 2 Tanks

Turkey's largest defense company Aselsan has completed the modernization of the German Leopard 2A4 tank, which will serve partly as a test bed for the country's planned first main battle tank, the Altay, Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

Aselsan dubbed the tank it just modernized as the "Leopard 2 Next Generation." The new tank will be displayed at IDEF 2011, Turkey's largest defense fair, which is held every two years in Istanbul. This year's event will run from May 10 to 13.

Aselsan, while modernizing the Leopard 2A4, has replaced the tank's all electronic, electro-optical, electro-mechanical and electro-hydraulic equipment with its state-of-the-art systems, the state news agency said.

Aselsan earlier modernized 171 German-made Leopard 1 tanks under a $160 million contract with the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, or SSM, Turkey's defense procurement agency.

A state-owned company, Aselsan specializes in military electronics. Founded in Ankara in 1975, the company's 2009 revenue reached nearly $643 million.

Separately, Otokar, a private armored vehicle maker, signed two years ago a $500 million contract with SSM for the design and development of the Altay, Turkey's first indigenous main battle tank.

Otokar has a deal with South Korea's Hyundai Rotem to obtain technology transfer for the production of four Altay prototypes by the end of 2015. Several other Turkish companies, including Aselsan, are taking part in the Altay's development.

Many of the subsystems Aselsan has used to modernize the Leopard 2A4 will be included in the Altay.

Israel's Israeli Military Industries, or IMI, had upgraded the Turkish Army's 170 U.S.-made M60 main battle tanks for nearly $700 million. IMI, which worked with several Turkish partners including Aselsan, delivered the last upgraded M60 to Turkey about a year ago.

But IMI's upgrade of the M60s and Aselsan's modernization of the Leopard 1 are different matters. The first deal included major armor, fire control and engine progress, while the second project included the replacement of fire control systems only.