Local missile defense system ‘not on agenda’

ANKARA – Reuters

The head of the Turkish Undersecretary of Defense Industry, Murad Bayar (C), speaks at a meeting. AA Photo

No plan has been made to work with a Turkish firm in providing a missile defense system as of yet, said the head of the Undersecretary of Defense Industry, Murad Bayar, on Dec. 13.

“After the Turkish Armed Forces meet the immediate demand for such a system, we can work with a Turkish firm that is already in line with our road map,” Bayar said.

Turkey’s largest defense company, Aselsan, may establish such a system, the company’s general manager Cengiz Ergeneman told daily Hürriyet last week.

“If we want a system controlled by ourselves, we have to make it by ourselves. After completing a medium-level air defense missile, we will also make a long-range defense [system]. We will be dependent on the basic design of the system that we choose. Turkey’s engineering capacity is sufficient to do it,” he said.

“We have been already planning to develop domestic solutions to meet our long-range demands as Turkey needs to close this gap,” Bayar said.

After the armed forces’ immediate demands are met for such products in a couple of years, local production works should then be made in parallel with the project, Bayar noted.

Turkey, a member of NATO, said in September it had chosen an air and missile defense system to be built by China Precision

Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC) over rivals, a company that is under United States’ sanctions.