All of Thales’ Turkish stuff on Turkey’s first intelligence ship

10 February 20222 years ago babelfish

The first Turkish intelligence ship , the UFUK TCG, was presented. Yaltes, the Turkish subsidiary of the French company Thales, contributed to electronics. The article by Giuseppe Gagliano

Thanks to the synergy of the Turkish defense companies – the Savunma Teknolojileeri Mühendislik (STM), the Aselsan and the Havelsan – the first Turkish intelligence ship , the TCG UFUK, “Horizon” in English, presented on January 14th, was built.

Well, in itself, this news would not have a particular relevance as it would confirm the will of Turkey to be increasingly autonomous in shipbuilding and above all it confirms once again the will to invest huge resources in strengthening military power at the naval level.

The particularity of this news actually depends on two other aspects. Let's see them briefly: the electronics that served to build this ship was made possible thanks to the involvement of the company Yaltes, the Turkish subsidiary of the French Thales. It is superfluous to observe the paradox of this collaboration considering the fact that France has repeatedly stressed the need to oppose and limit Turkish power politics in the Mediterranean.

Yaltes, which produces integrated solutions for the Navy, is headed by a retired Turkish naval officer Bulnt Hamzaoglu. Prior to joining the company last year, he worked on the Milgem National War Program at the Istanbul Shipyard (Insy), where TCG UFUK was built.

Now let's move on to the second interesting element.

Officially, the UFUK TCG, an ADA-class Corvette, joins the Turkish naval fleet as a test and training vessel. But it will be run by MIT, Turkey's intelligence service, marking a significant leap in its ability to gather intelligence. It is no coincidence that the director of Mit Hakan Fidan attended the launch.

On a geopolitical level, what could the creation of this new corvette change in the eastern Mediterranean ? It will certainly only increase the tensions between Turkey on the one hand and France, Greece and Cyprus.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/tutte-le-cose-turche-di-thales-sulla-prima-nave-di-intelligence-della-turchia/ on Thu, 10 Feb 2022 08:32:34 +0000.