BY MOHD EZLI MASHUT
ISTANBUL, JUL 4: Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated his determination to make the country independent in the development of self-defense system.
Erdogan said the country intends to be fully independent with the capability to build its own weapons by 2023.
He was speaking at the launch of the new Kinaliada corvette warship on Monday at a shipyard in Istanbul.
The Kinaliada Corvette ship is locally built under the Turkish MILGEM national warship programme to build frigate ships with an anti-submarine capability based on Turkish domestic technologies.
The Kinaliada is a fourth corvette ship build under this project and will be fully completed by 2019 while three other ships have already been assigned by the Turkish Navy.
The Kinaliada Corvette ship is 99.5 metre long and weighs 2,500 tonnes. It is operated with 106 crews and its speed can reach up to 54 kilometres per hour.
Turkey is among the ten countries in the world with the expertise to build warships.
“We will build our own aircraft carriers,” said Erdogan at the launch.
He said so far Turkey has exported several types and sizes of ships and boats to Malaysia, Bahrain, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Egypt, Georgia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Nigeria, Norway and Romania.
He said, Turkey can be proud to have the expertise in producing its own weaponry equipment particularly warships and submarines.
He said the country will not tolerate any attempt by foreign parties to put pressure and inhibit its defense system development.
“In 2016, Turkey reached its production target of $5 billion and export target of $1.6 billion,” he said.
Erdogan said, Turkey is prepared to build its own aircraft carrier after its Anadolu TCG amphibious war ship is completed in 2021.
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Erdogan: “We are prepared to build our own aircraft carriers”
