Turkey Considers Developing Indigenous Long Range Missile System

Turkey has decided to develop indigenous long range missile system instead of buying it from other nations.

“Instead of importing, the nation should focus on constructing indigenous long range missile system.” Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview aired on private ATV and A Haber channels late on Nov. 18,

“Turkey cancelled the existing missile project tender with a recent decision by the Defense Industry Executive Committee so the country could focus on development of long-range missile defense system developed by indigenous means.” He added. 

“We have been able to produce a lot of our armaments domestically. We were even not able to dream of this 13 years ago but we went beyond this,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying by Hurryet Daily News on Thursday.

“Turkey will even start soon to export armaments instead of “importing” them,” The president stated. However, the nation is currently producing missiles but the level of range is not up to the requirement.

“That’s what we have been negotiating at the moment; we want it to be both national and domestic and we want it to be ‘long range attack,’” he added.

The Undersecretariat of the Defense Industry (SSM) will work on this project and the project could be carried out either by opening a tender that might involve either China or France, or by an intergovernmental agreement, Erdoğan said.

Turkey has given up a tentative agreement to buy a $3.4 billion long range missile defense system from a Chinese company, ending a deal that ran for two years and had worried NATO allies.

The decision was made in the run-up to the G-20 Summit in Antalya, where Erdoğan hosted world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama.