President Erdoğan: We will make our defense industry much stronger

 

President and Party’s Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan introduced the party’s mayoral candidates for Sakarya and its districts during an event in the city.

In a speech at the event, President Erdoğan, referring to the groundbreaking ceremony for the BMC factory in Sakarya that he attended earlier in the day, noted that the factory will create employment for 10 thousand people once all the phases of its construction are completed and that it will conduct production both for internal and external markets. 

Praising the level the Turkish defense industry has reached as very important, President Erdoğan underscored that Turkey has many more steps to take to go even further. Citing the domestic production of warplane as one such step, President Erdoğan expressed determination to achieve it, and said: “We have made UAVs. We have made armed UAVs. We are now making Akıncı UAVs. Likewise, we will make our own planes, too. On one hand, we have become a partner to the production of F35 planes. On the other hand, we have developed our own training plane Hürkuş and are working to develop the warplane concept of the future.”

“WE STAND BY ALL OUR ENTREPRENEURS THAT ARE ACTIVE IN DEFENSE INDUSTRY”

“Although there had been a number of attempts concerning our defense industry in light of the experience of the Cyprus Peace Operation, unfortunately things had gone sour after a while in this area. Some attempts that were led by the late Özal didn’t yield the desired results, either,” said President Erdoğan, and continued: “We saw the strategic importance of the defense industry when we came to office and, accordingly, took the projects conducted in this area under our personal auspices. We have thereby lowered our external dependence in defense industry from some 80% to 35%. There are those who underestimate the headway Turkey has made in defense industry, trying to discourage Turkish entrepreneurs, like what they did to Nuri Demirağ. We, however, stand by all our entrepreneurs that are active in defense industry. And joining forces with them, we will make our defense industry much stronger.”