Turkish and German naval specialists signed May 10 a letter of intent to cooperate on a contract to build variant of the Type-214 diesel-electric submarines for the Indonesian Navy, according to a report by defensenews.com

The deal was signed at the IDEF'17 defense and aerospace exhibition in Istanbul between STM Defense Technologies and Engineering Inc, a government-controlled defense engineering company operating under Undersecretariat of Defense Industries and Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.

"We are bringing together our resources with the aim of designing and constructing submarines for Indonesia," STM and TKMS official said during a ceremony.

Through the joint venture with STM, TKMS is partnering with Turkey's Gölcük shipyard, the production site for the Piri Reis, the first of a batch of six Type-214 submarines being built for the Turkish Navy.

The Type 214 is a derivation of the Type-209 SSK built by Germany's Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, or HDW. The Type-214 features design innovations from the HDW Type-212. It displaces 1,700 tons and has eight torpedo tubes which can deploy heavyweight torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, such as the Harpoon and Exocet.

Under a contract worth 2.5 billion euros (U.S. $2.7 billion), six Type-214 submarines are being built for the Turkish Navy. Some of the subsystems will be locally built.

Turkish ASELSAN will provide electronic support measures and sensor systems for the submarine program and military software specialist HAVELSAN will build an integrated command and control suite.

According to the Turkish-German letter of intent, the first one or two of the planned submarines for the Indonesian Navy will be built at a Turkish shipyard, probably in Gölcük shipyard as Daily Sabah previously reported. The follow-on platforms would be built in Indonesia.