Turkey and Egypt are moving to deepen maritime cooperation, with joint naval shipbuilding now among the opportunities under consideration. The effort was disclosed as the two navies gathered in Alexandria for the Sea of Friendship 2026 exercise.

Adm. Ercüment Tatlıoğlu, commander of Turkey’s navy, announced the shipbuilding ambitions during the exercise. The drill was conducted under the command of Egypt’s Northern Fleet from Nov. 4 to Nov. 9.

The previous Sea of Friendship exercise occurred in 2025 after a hiatus lasting 13 years. This year’s edition included the TCG Anadolu, the largest warship in the Turkish Navy’s inventory.

Training covered surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, air defense operations and underwater assault missions. The exercise placed major Turkish and Egyptian naval units together for a broad slate of operations.

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Tatlıoğlu met his Egyptian counterpart, Vice Adm. Mahmoud Adel Fawzy, at Alexandria Naval Base on Nov. 7. Their discussions took place on the sidelines of the exercise.

Tatlıoğlu described the drill as a substantial demonstration of expanding cooperation between Turkey and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean. He said both navies were taking concrete steps to broaden their work involving unmanned aerial and naval systems.

The exercise featured the Bayraktar TB3 unmanned aerial vehicle and the MKE Pirana one-way unmanned surface vehicle. Their participation highlighted the unmanned systems component of the growing maritime relationship.

“We aim to take our defense industry cooperation in the maritime domain to a more advanced level by undertaking joint shipbuilding activities with Egypt, similar to the cooperation we have established with Pakistan under the MILGEM Project,” Tatlıoğlu said.

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The Turkish Navy initiated the MILGEM Project to design and construct indigenously developed naval platforms. It produced Ada-class corvettes and Istanbul-class frigates that are in service with the Turkish Navy.

The project also produced Ada-class variants for the Pakistani, Ukrainian and Malaysian navies. A Hisar-class offshore patrol vessel was developed for the Romanian Navy.

Fawzy said the Sea of Friendship exercise was well planned and executed even though sea conditions were not particularly favorable. His assessment pointed toward further cooperation between the Egyptian and Turkish fleets.

“This activity demonstrates that we are on the right track,” Fawzy said. “We can train together, plan together and conduct ship-boarding activities together. We can work together. In the near future, the Egyptian and Turkish navies may be able to operate side by side, shoulder to shoulder, on joint missions.”

The exercise followed the eastern Libyan House of Representatives’ unanimous ratification of a maritime jurisdiction agreement between Turkey and Libya. The Benghazi based chamber approved the agreement on Oct. 20, shortly before the naval drill.

The original 2019 maritime delimitation agreement established a boundary between the claimed continental shelves and exclusive economic zones of Turkey and Libya in the Eastern Mediterranean. For Turkey, the agreement is intended to protect its maritime jurisdiction claims and prevent Greek islands from effectively limiting its access to maritime areas.

For Libya, the pact provides a basis for asserting its maritime rights. Greece opposes the agreement, arguing that it disregards the maritime entitlements of Greek islands and undermines Greek claims in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The agreement was signed in 2019 only by Libya’s Government of National Accord in Tripoli. Ratification by the House of Representatives in Benghazi has now brought Libya’s two major parties into acceptance of the pact.

Egypt nevertheless retains its objections to the maritime agreement. During an Oct. 23 visit to Istanbul, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty called the pact “completely null and void” while meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Serhat Güvenç, a professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, said Egypt remained unwilling to sign an exclusive economic zone agreement with Turkey while still participating in a major naval exercise alongside it.

“Egypt’s position regarding the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Libya and its willingness to develop military and maritime relations with Türkiye are not mutually exclusive,” Güvenç said. “In fact, in this picture, Egypt may perhaps be in a better position than the other actors in terms of respect for international law and acting with due care in this regard, because Turkey and Greece are pursuing maximalist positions.”

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