Turkey’s military and procurement officials are increasingly relying on various drone systems, most notably to boost the country’s asymmetrical fight against Kurdish insurgents and hostile Islamic groups fighting in the Syrian civil war.
One military official said that the local unmanned aerial vehicle capabilities have since 2015 yielded “wonderful results” in fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, an insurgency group outlawed by Turkey, the United States and European Union. The PKK’s fighting for a Kurdish homeland has caused over 40,000 deaths since 1984.
A procurement official confirmed: “There is increasing appetite from the end user (the military) for drone systems and subsystems. The next years will see even larger demand for drones and related capabilities.”
At the end of June, Turkey’s procurement office, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, or SSM, released a request for information for a new program for the purchase of a drone system with aerial photography capabilities. SSM said the competition would be open to local producers only.
The full article can be read at: Defense News