Turkey and US to hold joint drill in East Med.

According to information published by Daily Sabbah on March 16, 2021, Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the U.S. military are expected to carry out some comprehensive training to increase interoperability in the Eastern Mediterranean.
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G-class Frigate TCG Gemlik F-492 of the Turkish Navy (Picture source: Daily Sabbah)

As part of that plan, Turkish frigate TCG Gemlik, affiliated with the Naval Forces Command, will meet up with an Aircraft Carrier Task Group, led by the USS Eisenhower, in the south of Rhodes on Tuesday, according to Turkish Defense Ministry sources.

TCG Gemlik, G-class Frigate, which will sail for a while with the aforementioned task group, will join some extended training in the Eastern Mediterranean on March 18.

Transition training will also be held in the Eastern Mediterranean with the USS Eisenhower Aircraft Carrier Task Group, with the participation of frigates from the Naval Forces Command.

Turkey is at loggerheads with EU members Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration over energy resources in disputed waters in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey, which has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, has rejected Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration's maritime boundary claims and stressed that these excessive claims violate the sovereign rights of both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.

Ankara has sent several drillships in recent months for hydrocarbon exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, asserting its rights in the region as well as those of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

The G class is one of the frigate classes of the Turkish Navy. They are extensively modernized versions of ex-Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigates of the US Navy, mainly designed for air defense with a weapons configuration that is optimized for general warfare.

The G-class frigates have undergone a major modernization program which included the retrofitting of a Turkish digital combat management system named GENESIS (Gemi Entegre Savaş İdare Sistemi). The system was designed and implemented jointly by the Turkish Navy and HAVELSAN, a Turkish electronic hardware systems and software company.