Defense News:
ANKARA — Turkey’s military and procurement officials are mulling a stopgap, off-the-shelf solution after they scrapped a multibillion dollar air defense contract and decided to build it indigenously.
Officials said the military top brass is especially keen for the stopgap solution, citing increasing conventional military threats, especially after Turkey became the first NATO member state to shoot down a Russian military airplane and spark a row.
Turkey’s relations with Russia turned sour, with Russia threatening to punish Turkey “not only by economic sanctions” after Turkish F-16 fighters Nov. 24 shot down a Russian Su-24 after the jet briefly violated the Turkish airspace along Turkey’s Syrian border.
“Turkey now faces multiple conventional threats including from a military heavyweight like Russia and from unreliable states like Iran and Syria,” said one senior military officer. “We do not have the luxury not to have a powerful, long-range air defense architecture. We cannot forever rely on NATO assets inside and outside Turkey.”
In September 2013, Turkey selected China Precision Machinery Import Export Corp. (CPMIEC) to build the country’s first long-range air and anti-missile defense system. The Chinese company offered a $3.44 billion solution.
The firm defeated a US partnership of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, offering the Patriot air defense system; Russia’s Rosoboronexport, marketing the S-300; and Italian-French consortium Eurosam, maker of the Aster 30.
Under strong pressure from NATO allies who said that a Chinese system could not be made interoperable with NATO assets on Turkish soil, Turkey opened parallel talks with the US and European contenders.
The Ankara government Nov. 13 scrapped the competition and tasked two local companies to build an indigenous system instead.
Military electronics specialist Aselsan, Turkey’s biggest defense company, and missile maker Roketsan, both state-controlled, will develop the system. But there are concerns the work may take too long.
“We share the military’s concerns that our requirement may be too urgent to wait for the indigenous system in the making,” said one procurement official familiar with the program. “We may have to buy two systems off the shelf.” The original program was for the acquisition of four systems.
