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ANKARA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The Turkish government presented to parliament on Thursday a memorandum to allow Turkey to deploy its navy off the Somali coast to prevent pirates hijacking its ships, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.

More than a dozen ships with links to NATO-member Turkey have been among the vessels hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia during the recent spate of piracy.

The agency said the memorandum envisaged a one-year limit for the deployment in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast.

"The threat to our commercial vessels has reached a dimension where it negatively affects our country's trade and economic interests," the memorandum said.

It said there had been nearly 500 incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the maritime region.

Some 15 ships with links to Turkey have been hijacked, along with more than 300 crew, of which 37 were Turkish.

"The gravity and complexity of the problem requires that the international community acts together with a comprehensive approach," the memorandum said.

It said Turkey was cooperating actively in the work of the United Nations, NATO and the European Union on the issue. It was not clear when parliament would consider the memorandum.

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes has sent insurance prices soaring, forced some owners to decide to go around South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, and brought an unprecedented deployment of foreign warships to the region. Two Turkish ships hijacked last year were released by Somali pirates last month. (Writing by Daren Butler)

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