![\"eople](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/af746d6e-turkey-defence-industry-epa-06072026-06072026.webp\"\/)
Turkey\u2019s defence industry which ranks 11th in the world, accounts for 1.8% of the global arms market. (EPA Images pic)
\nISTANBUL: Ankara hopes its hosting of an upcoming Nato summit will cement its rise as a key European security partner, building on the rapid growth of its defence industry despite resistance from some allies.<\/p>\n
The two-day summit opens on Tuesday with the Defence Industry Forum \u2014 once a sideline event, now formally part of the programme \u2014 at which some 3,500 companies will be showcasing the best of Turkey\u2019s burgeoning defence technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is inconceivable to establish European security without Turkey,\u201d President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said while pushing relentlessly for Turkey\u2019s \u201cinclusion\u201d in all of Europe\u2019s defence and security structures, notably the EU\u2019s 150-billion-euro (US$176-billion) SAFE programme.<\/p>\n
Turkey boasts Nato\u2019s second-biggest army after the US with 355,000 troops and another 378,000 reservists, with its defence industry notably booming over the past decade.<\/p>\n
But its desire to switch from supplier to a strategic partner has been held in check.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurkey has been largely left out of Europe-wide programmes and projects. That is what Turkey wants to change\u2026 And to do that, it will use the summit to showcase its capabilities,\u201d said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, head of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s defence industry \u2014 which ranks 11th in the world, accounting for 1.8% of the global arms market, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) \u2014 saw exports grow by 48% in 2025, up from 29% a year earlier, officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now achieve in one week what we used to achieve in one year,\u201d Erdogan said last month of Turkey\u2019s exports of drones, tanks, armoured vehicles and warships, one of which was delivered to Romania, becoming \u201cthe first export of a military ship to an EU and Nato member country\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Detoxification\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not want to be seen only as a supplier. We want to be regarded as a strategic partner.. (for) joint production and technology cooperation,\u201d Haluk Gorgun, head of Turkey\u2019s SSB Defence Industry Agency told Defence24 news website last month.<\/p>\n
But allies are questioning Ankara\u2019s long-term reliability with European technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are asking because of Turkey\u2019s track record with Russia,\u201d said Unluhisarcikli, referring to Ankara\u2019s 2017 acquisition of a Russian S\u2011400 air-defence system that alarmed its Nato partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what Turkey needs to persuade France, Italy and Germany about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ties soured in 2015 with Turkey\u2019s military operations in Syria and Libya, then worsened over tensions with Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Although the relationship has entered a process of \u201cdetoxification\u201d, helped by Turkey\u2019s support for Kyiv, the S-400 issue has remained a stumbling block, notably with Washington, with Ankara struggling to find a way to offload the offending system.<\/p>\n
Today Turkey\u2019s relationship with the UK and a handful of European nations is working, but \u201cit\u2019s not working with the European Union as a whole because there are a couple of members who are blocking it,\u201d explained Professor Mustafa Aydin, an international relations expert at Ankara\u2019s TOBB University.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently it\u2019s not for Germany and France, and these are the two countries that matter,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
Irrational to exclude Turkey<\/p>\n
Under SAFE, firms from non-EU countries like Turkey can only supply up to 35% of the component costs of weaponry funded by the scheme.<\/p>\n
To tap a bigger part of the funds, Ankara must sign a security partnership with the EU and then negotiate special access with Brussels \u2014 requiring approval from all 27 members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe political issues blocking Ankara\u2019s access to the SAFE programme are the dispute between Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, but also France\u2019s ill will,\u201d said Sinan Ulgen, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe.<\/p>\n
Given the difficult geopolitical context facing a Europe caught between the war in Ukraine and the diplomatic standoff with Washington, it was \u201cirrational\u201d not to let Turkey take part, he said.<\/p>\n
Within the EU, Spain, Romania, Poland and notably Italy have forged deep defence ties with Turkey, with Turkish drone maker Baykar buying Italy\u2019s Piaggio Aerospace and signing a partnership with defence giant Leonardo over the past 18 months.<\/p>\n
Outside of the EU, Britain is cooperating with Turkey\u2019s flagship KAAN project to build its own fifth-generation stealth fighter.<\/p>\n
Ankara hopes Washington will unblock delivery of a batch of US-made jet engines that will be used in the project when US President Donald Trump flies in for next week\u2019s Nato summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s defence industry which ranks 11th in the world, accounts for 1.8% of the global arms market. (EPA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1360,14,243,1361,673,95],"class_list":["post-2134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-chance","tag-defence-industry","tag-nato","tag-shine","tag-summit","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}