Dubai: The US Navy says it has carried out its first joint counter-piracy naval exercises with China off the Horn of Africa.
The Navy`s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said today that teams from the guided missile destroyer USS Winston S Churchill and Chinese frigate Yi Yang practiced boarding and search operations aboard the American ship yesterday.
The Navy says the aim was to prepare the countries to work together in searching suspicious vessels and to respond to pirated ships.
The US routinely conducts military exercises with other countries, but this was the first bilateral counter-piracy drill with China, which is a growing naval power.
The US Navy this week launched a separate exercise in the Mideast involving more than two dozen countries. That drill is focused on countering anti-ship mines.
PTI
