Pakistani Navy Ship Docks In Kuwait On Good Will Mission

The Pakistani Navy Ship, PNS Shahjahan, docked at Kuwait's Shuwaikh Port on Sunday on "a good will mission" during which it would engage in exercises with the Kuwaiti Navy. In its second visit to Kuwaiti shores, Shahjahan -- built in 1972 in the United Kingdom -- first visited the Gulf state in 2005 as part of joint Pakistani-GCC military exercises, said the vessel's Second Commander-in-Chief Captain Mohammad Faisal Abbasi in response to a KUNA question. "The Pakistani destroyer will engage in maritime drills with Kuwaiti navy ships," Abbasi told reporters, and expressed his country's keenness to "place all its naval and military expertise at the dispense of Kuwait." Kuwait Navy has "highly-trained staff and well-equipped facilities," he said.PNS Shahjahan (DDG 186)Before coming to Kuwait, PNS Shahjahan was in Bahrain and had held exercises with Bahraini naval forces, Abbasi said, adding that another reason for the visit was to promote "Naval diplomacy," whereby any naval ship adopted similar regulations as those of the country it docked at. Kuwait Navy officers had participated in war games that took place in Pakistani waters in March of this year alongside 13 other countries, "but only as observers," Captain Abbasi said. Shahjahan, the Pakistani Navy's frontline ship, had fought in the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982, before being purchased and commissioned to Pakistani Navy in September 1994. It is scheduled to stay in Kuwait from May 27-31, 2007, before holding war games with Kuwaiti Navy ships on its way back home.