Explaining his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) election manifesto, PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged that Turkey’s local defence companies would manufacture indigenous “tanks, helicopters, war planes, unmanned aircraft and military satellites in the next 12 years.”
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is putting an unprecedented emphasis on the defense industry in its campaign for the June 12 elections. The party’s promises focus on establishing and developing a domestic industry that comes near to being self-sufficient. Erdoğan says the capital city of Ankara will become the headquarters of the sector
Visions for the defence industry have not played a key role in election campaigns by either a ruling or opposition party ahead of previous Turkish polls. But this year, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been holding up Turkey’s developing national defence industry as one of the pillars of a modern economy in the 2020s.
In the weeks leading up to the nationwide parliamentary election that will be held June 12, Erdoğan had made three major speeches on the national defence industry. The prime minister has vigorously set out a national strategy to maximize local production in Turkey’s defense programmes, aiming at what he calls “near self-sufficiency.” In recent years, Turkey has practically suspended off-the-shelf purchase options, restructuring programmes into local development or coproduction.
As it seeks re-election for a third term in power, the incumbent AKP government is also ambitiously planning to make Ankara, the country’s capital, into a “global defence industry base.”
Source: Turkey Daily News