Turkey to increase int'l UAV exports

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Turkey’s Baykar Company has announced that it will export unmanned aerial vehicles to one more country, Yeni Shafak newspaper reported on October 27.

“We have completed the BayraktarTB2 UAV export contract with one more country. With this agreement, the number of countries where BayraktarTB2 UAV was exported reached 13,” the company reported on its Twitter account.

However, the company has not yet provided any details about the country an agreement has been reached with.

Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Qatar and Libya have added the BayraktarTB2 UAVs to their military arsenal.

 The Turkish UAVs that developed with domestic and national resources have been successfully applied in Syria, Libya, Karabakh and during counter-terrorism operations.

Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Committee Chairman Kamchybek Tashiev also stated that the country had purchased BayraktarTB2 from Turkey.

 "Only five countries have this equipment and Kyrgyzstan will join these countries," he said in an interview with the Russian media.

Baykar is a private Turkish defence company specialising in UAVs and artificial intelligence, which was founded with 100 percent domestic capital in 1984 as Baykar Makina by Ozdemir Bayraktar.

The company’s primary goals were the production of automotive parts such as engines, pumps and spare parts to ensure the localization of the automotive industry in Turkey.

In the 2000s the company took steps towards producing unmanned aerial vehicles in line with the developments and progress in the aviation sector.