Comparto este articulo del sitio warisboring.org acerca de las ambiciones turcas de crear su propio portaaviones. Es el mas completo que encontré al respecto y del que se sirvieron numerosos sitios para desarrollar la noticia.
Why in the World Does Turkey Want an Aircraft Carrier?
Light flattop serves regional ambitions
Upon overseeing the launch of a domestically-built corvette in July 2017, Turkish Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced his country’s goal of building
“our own aircraft carriers” as part of Ankara’s efforts to “become independent in the field of defense by 2023.”
“We must move even faster,” Erdogan declared. “We are proud of our ability to build military ships, especially construction of submarines.”
Erdogan’s remark isn’t necessarily far-fetched. It comes more than a year after
Turkey began construction on the TCG
Anadolu, an amphibious assault ship based on Spain’s
Juan Carlos I. This light aircraft carrier, which Turkey aims to launch in three years time, will eventually become the flagship of the Turkish navy and may even carry six F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, which can take off and land vertically.
Turkey already has plans to become an F-35 operator and may well purchase these variants.
Alternatively, the
Anadolu could serve purely as a helicopter carrier, carrying TAI/AgustaWestland T129 helicopter gunships, which Turkey co-produced with Italy, along with Chinook-sized heavy-lift helicopters. Spain’s
Juan Carlos I, in addition to acting as a troop-carrying ship, carries Spain’s current AV-8B Harrier jump jets.
The backdrop to these plans and Erdogan’s pronouncements are of Turkey trying to project power in the region and beyond. Turkish soldiers are presently stationed in the Persian Gulf
in the tiny sheikdom of Qatar. Turkey has built a base in Somalia to help train the national army there to combat the Al Shabaab group, and has troop deployments in Iraq and Syria.
Above and at top—the Spanish amphibious assault ship ‘Juan Carlos I,’ similar to the upcoming TCG ‘Anadolu.’ Photos via Wikimedia.
In short, the Turkish military isn’t confining itself to within its own borders, or even within its own region.
Turkey’s rival Egypt is the only country in the region to possess flattops, albeit French
Mistral-class amphibious assault ships. Egypt
purchased these vessels from France in 2015, giving it a heavy-lift capability which few countries in the world can boast.
The ships have yet to see any actual combat or deployment far from Egypt’s shores. Furthermore, they cannot operate warplanes like the
Juan Carlos I or the
Anadolu can.
A
highly dubious report in 2015 even suggested that Israel sought to purchase “a modern aircraft carrier,” without specifying the class, from the United States. Possession of a carrier would enable Israel to project naval and air power against rivals, namely Iran, far from its own shores. While Israel is often described as an immovable American aircraft carrier, it’s quite unlikely to possess an
actual carrier of its own anytime soon.
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