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Minehunter ‘Tajo’ is integrated into Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2

Tuzla, (Turkey)
February 22, 2021
  • The Standing Naval Maritime Counter Mine Group 2 (SNMCMG2) continues its mission, with a Spanish vessel within the force

Minehunter 'Tajo' is Spain's contribution to the NATO Standing Naval Group. Besides the Spanish vessel, This grouping is made of  the Turkish vessel TCG 'Sokullu Mehmet Pasa' as grouping flagship, Turkish Minehunter TCG 'Ayvalik', Bulgarian Minehunter PGS 'Priboy' and Romanian Minehunter ROS 'Lupu Dinescu'. The integration ceremony, chaired by the Admiral of the Turkish Fleet, VADM. Keith Blount, took place at the port of Tuzla, where the Turkish Naval Academy is located. The Grouping Commander (COMSNMCMG2) is captain Yusuf Karagulle.

Throughout two months, the Group will conduct three major mine countermeasures exercises, with a lot of assets involved in all of them. The exercises are POSEIDON, ARIADNE and ITALIAN MINEX and will take place at the Black Sea, Greek and Italian waters respectively.

SNMCMG-2 is one of the four maritime components of NATO's Rapid Response Force. Its main mission is to contribute to maintaining freedom of navigation, as well as to enable amphibious operations of naval power projection over land. It achieves this through the detection, location, identification and neutralization of mines.

Minehunter 'Tajo' (M-36) is Spain's newest minehunter, It was commissioned to the Spanish Navy in 2005 and its crew are 55 sailors.

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