Show Of Strength: US, China take part in Pak naval drills

ISLAMABAD: The United States and China began naval drills in the Arabian Sea with Pakistan and other countries on Thursday, the Pakistani navy said, in a show of strength against terrorism and piracy.

The AMAN-13 exercise involves ships from 13 countries and observers from 20 others and comes two weeks after China took control of the strategic Arabian Sea port in Gwadar from Singapore’s PSA International.

The five-day exercise, which began earlier this week with meetings and manoeuvres in port, will end on Friday and is aimed at “information sharing, mutual understanding and identifying areas of common interest”, the navy said in a statement.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2013.