Ankara: Turkey yesterday unveiled its first drone aircraft, a surveillance craft able to fly for 24-hour stretches over the rugged mountains where Kurdish rebels are waging a deadly insurgency.
Turkey's eagerness to produce its own military technology mirrors its increasingly robust and independent diplomacy in the region. And producing its own drone fleet would allow Turkey to sever an important link with Israel, which has provided Turkey with drones even amid rising tensions over Israeli policy toward the Gaza Strip.
While the success of the Turkish-made drone is far from assured, Turkish engineers said they were confident it would become part of the country's arsenal. Ozcan Ertem, head of the project, said an armed version of the Anka, or Phoenix, was possible but not in the works for now.
Some 43 countries have now developed unmanned aerial vehicles, which have proved to be extremely effective in gathering intelligence and, in US hands, staging attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
Ertem said four or five countries are expected to place orders for the Anka once the Turkish Air Force issues an order probably later this year. The first system was expected to be delivered to the Turkish Air Force in 2013.
The drone, with a 56-foot wingspan and an ability to fly for 24 hours at a speed of 75 knots per hour and height of 9,144 metres is expected to spy mostly on Kurdish rebels. Turkey has purchased 10 massive Heron drones from Israel and their delivery was expected to be completed in August.
The defence cooperation goes beyond drones — Israel has upgraded some of Turkey's combat jets and tanks with modern radar equipment, according to defence officials and analysts, but the relationship is threatened by the dispute over Israel's May 31 raid on an aid ship that attempted to break its blockade of Gaza.
The Turkish defence industry is "not yet world-class, but certainly growing. However, it is still dependent on foreign builders and likely will stay that way for a while," said Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defence Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
