Turkey to develop domestic air defence system

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Turkey will develop its domestic air defence system within five years, Turkey’s Defence Industry Chief Ismail Demir told the Turkish media.

"Our target is to produce an S-400-scale defence system domestically within five years," Demir said while commenting on the production of a domestic air defence system.

Stressing the gradual development of the defence industry, Demir said that Turkey currently employs domestic Hisar-A+ and Hisar-O+ defence systems, which are effective up to 20 kilometres.

In the next stages, the defence industry aims to increase the range up to 100 kilometres and ultimately upgrading it to the S-400 like air defence system within five years.

The Turkish defence industry chief stressed that the air defence systems should be effective against all kinds of threats including aeroplanes, ballistic missiles and drones.

Speaking about the ongoing projects, he stated that electronic warfare is also at the centre of attention and the Turkish drones proved to be effective in this sphere.

As far as unmanned systems are concerned, Demir said not only UAVs but land and sea vehicles are meant here.

"Various prototypes are being developed in that area. Some of them are in the trial phase, some of them are about to enter the inventory,” he added.

He also stressed that there are many factors that push and trigger the defence industry to follow up the changes and to introduce up-to-date products.

“So many changes have been made to TB2 that there are big differences between the first day TB2 and the current one. Akinci will be the same. Akinci is currently in inventory but will continue to evolve. Various types of ammunition will be supplied, various types of engines will be used, and it will continue to evolve,” Demir said.

Commenting on the production of tank engines, he noted that the process is currently in a testing phase and these engines are based on classical technology.

However, the defence industry follows up all new trends and aims to create all necessary conditions for the production of new generation engines, he added.

The defence industry chief also commented on the further development of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), saying that creation of better drones has always been a priority for the industry.

“I am eagerly awaiting our national fighter jet and our unmanned jet warship and the rocket that will go into space,” he concluded.