The Kinaliada arrived on Monday, November 20 in Toulon for a three-day stopover in the French military port, noted Mer et Marine. If other vessels of the Turkish navy, such as Meko type frigates, come more or less regularly to Toulon, particularly when they are integrated into NATO naval groups, this is the first time that a corvette of the type Ada is taking a break in France. And this visit takes place within a national framework.
While the French frigate Surcouf made a stopover in Izmir last month, we can undoubtedly see this as a sign of a warming of relations between Paris and Ankara. They became seriously tense in June 2020 when the Courbet, on patrol off the Libyan coast, was illuminated by the fire control of a Turkish frigate. This escorted the Ro-Ro Cerkin, probably loaded with military equipment intended for the forces of the Government of National Unity (GNA) in Tripoli, helped by Turkey while it was in conflict with Marshal Khalifa Haftar, supported by several countries , including Egypt, the Emirates and Russia. Added to other disputes, the Courbet affair had further strained the tensions that already existed between France and Turkey. However, if at the political level the quarrel has dragged on, on the military level, the links, important due to the membership of the two countries in the Atlantic Alliance, have never been broken. The French and Turkish armies thus continued to work together, without this cooperation being highlighted too much.
#Turkish #corvette #Ada #type #time #Toulon
