Italy and Turkey have completed a joint naval exercise in the Mediterranean in which submarines were deployed, Turkey's defence ministry tweeted, quoted by Sabah daily on Tuesday.
Italy and Turkey possess some of the best equipped and most effective submarine forces in the Mediterranean and will continue to "improve their interoperability" though naval training exercises, said the tweet.
The naval exercises came ahead of talks in Ankara on Wednesday between Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio and his Turkish counterpart Mevluut Cavusoglu.
Di Maio and Cavusoglu's talks will focus on bilateral relations, Turkey’s European Union accession bid, current regional and international developments and the fight against COVID-19, said a Turkish foreign ministry statement.
