The multinational naval exercise, AMAN-07, will be held in the harbor phase and the sea phase, according to the Pakistan navy Tuesday.

During the harbor phase from March 6 to 7, representatives from participating countries will visit each other's ships and have city tours around the southern Pakistani port of Karachi, which harbors most of the ships from the participating countries except for those of the United States.

Captain Siddiq Akbar, director of the public relations of the Pakistan navy, told Xinhua that the ships from Bangladesh, China, France, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom arrived Monday at Karachi but the U.S. warships are staying in the Arabian sea off the port.

The Italian ship is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday morning while Turkey will not send ships but special forces to the event, he said.

With Pakistan as the host, there will be nine countries participating in the AMAN-7 naval exercise.

From March 8 to 11, the nine participants will have professional sea exercise aimed to enhance coherence and interoperability among them during the sea phase.

Akbar said that Pakistan was proud to have navies from both the east and the west to take part in the joint exercise, adding that it highlighted Pakistan's important role as a bridge between the two.

The countries which will send observers to the event are Australia, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Libya, Maldives, Myanmar, Nigeria the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, the UAE, Ukraine, and Kenya.

Source: Xinhua