Turkish Navy

TCG Kınalıada, the fourth ship of the MİLGEM project -- a Turkish national warship program -- will be handed over to the Turkish Navy at a commissioning ceremony in Istanbul on Sept. 29.

Athens is observing with concern as Turkey continues to plan to prospect for hydrocarbons south of the Greek island of Kastellorizo despite warnings from the European Union of sanctions over its drilling off Cyprus.

Turkey launched its largest annual military exercise on Monday, called Sea Wolf (Denizkurdu), Turkish news agency Anadolu reported.
The exercise, supervised by the Turkish navy, will run through May 25 in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Sea with 131 warships, 57 warplanes and 33 helicopters, the news agency said, citing the Turkish General Staff.

European Council President Donald Tusk says the European Union "stands united" behind Cyprus as tensions between the Mediterranean island nation and Turkey escalate over offshore gas drilling.

Speaking Thursday after an informal EU summit in Romania, Tusk said the EU "expects Turkey to respect the sovereign rights" of its member nation and the bloc will closely monitor the situation.

A Greek marine conservation group says a "very unusual" increase in Aegean Sea dolphin deaths in recent weeks may be linked to Turkish naval exercises in the area.

Fifteen dead dolphins have washed up on the eastern island of Samos and other parts of Greece's Aegean coastline since late February, according to the Archipelagos Institute.

Photos of Turkish navy divers holding a Turkish flag under the sea in Greek island Crete's Souda Bay have stirred reaction in Greece, local media has reported.

Defense authorities in Greece on Tuesday refuted reports in the Turkish media suggesting that the country had sent ships to Imia that were preventing Greek vessels from approaching the islets that brought the two neighbors to the brink of war in January 1996.

Turkey issued a navigational telex (NAVTEX) to announce that it is reserving an area surrounding the territorial waters of the small Greek island of Kastelorizo in the southeastern Aegean on October 31, for a search and rescue exercise.

According to the marine advisory, the Turkish Navy will block the area to marine traffic for four hours, starting at 11 p.m.

Ankara amped up tensions with Athens on Wednesday, warning that it will not allow anyone to interfere with the activities of its seismographic research vessel in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey plans to build a naval base in the occupied north of Cyprus, Yeni Safak newspaper said on Tuesday.

The paper, which is closely affiliated to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the Turkish Navy has already submitted a request to the Foreign Ministry to begin procedures to find an "appropriate" spot on the island to build the base.