The $110-billion weapons sales deal that US President Trump signed during his visit to Saudi Arabia has knocked Turkish shipyards aiming to export Corvette-class vessels from the MILGEM (National Ship) program to Saudi Arabia into a spin.
The Turkish government wants to finalize efforts to ink a deal to sell four indigenous MILGEM Corvettes for a total of nearly $2 billion. The termination of this agreement came as a complete shock to Turkish shipyards, which are already in economic crisis. Although Turkey has been negotiating with various countries to export these warships, it has not yet succeeded.
According to the USNI News website, Saudi Arabia preferred the Freedom Class Frigate by the American company Lockheed Martin over the MILGEM Corvettes. According to the site, the cost of this project is $6 billion. According to the website C4defence, the cost of the project is up to $11 billion once factors such as planning and fulfillment of operations support, support and training facilities, repairs and spare parts, support and test equipment, and communications equipment employing the Link 16 network has been added to the cost of the vessels.
