Azerbaijan, Turkey could share experience in defense industry – envoy
By Trend
Azerbaijan and Turkey could share experience in defense industry sphere, according to the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Ankara Khazar İbrahim.
“Ankara and Baku could share their experience in this area and reciprocally build on their capacity. "[Firstly] Azerbaijan and Turkey [can continue to] conduct military exercises together. A few were conducted this year in Kars and then in Izmir. This is very important,” the envoy told Daily Sabah.
Secondly, Ibrahim believes that there may be a weapons and technology partnership.
The envoy spoke on the possibility of working together in areas such as the production of unmanned drones and helicopters.
"The third should be on strategic thinking. There are different threats in the region but these threats are directed at both Turkey and Azerbaijan,” he noted.
In this regard, the envoy pointed out that the security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is provided by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey for example.
"Moreover, Turkey is a NATO member, and Azerbaijan is a partner of NATO. We are also doing some collaboration there,” he added.
The ambassador also stressed that Turkish and Azerbaijani companies could make joint investments abroad.
“Major Azerbaijani and Turkish companies can invest jointly abroad. Both countries can strengthen each other in this manner,” Ibrahim noted.
Presently, the export of Turkish defense products exceeds $160 billion.
From 2011, Turkey has set up the production of mobile outposts that proved useful in fights against the militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and also the Canik TP9 handguns, unmanned ANKA aircraft and other military equipment to strengthen the domestic defense industry.
Turkey is also developing a domestic military laser system.
Earlier, the trials of the domestically-made long-range surface-to-surface missiles have also been conducted in Turkey. The new rocket, named KAAN, was launched from a firing ground in the province of Sinop in the north of Turkey.
The KAAN rocket system, produced by Roketsan, was first demonstrated at the International Defense Industry Fair IDEF-2017 in Istanbul.
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