24 states request to purchase Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
31 Aug 2022 13:23

This comes as Kiev and Ankara pledged to work on a scheme to build a plant in Ukraine for the manufacturing of Bayraktar armed drones.

Turkish Baykar receiving procurement requests for the Bayraktar TB2 drone

The Turkish defense company Baykar, which specializes in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), has received requests for the procurement of Bayraktar TB2 combat drones from 24 countries, including European and East Asian states, according to the firm's technical director on Wednesday.

"To date, Bayraktar TB2 has received requests from 24 countries. Orders and export contracts have been signed. This number is increasing every day. Some of them are from East Asia, some are from Europe, so there is demand in various parts of the world," Selcuk Bayraktar was quoted as saying by the Turkish news agency Aksam.

It is worth noting that the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov stated that Kiev and Ankara were still working in late June on a scheme to build a plant in Ukraine to manufacture Bayraktar armed drones.

Earlier this month, Vasyl Bodnar, Ukraine's Ambassador to Turkey, said that a Baykar factory, the Turkish company which produces the Bayraktar attack drones, is underway in Ukraine.

Bodnar said that "the factory will be built. Just a week ago, the government approved the bilateral agreement and sent it to the parliament for ratification, the agreement on the construction of the plant itself."

A piece of land has already been purchased and developed by the company where Baykar sought to build the factory, as "it was almost a personal commitment of the company owners to make this production in Ukraine," said Bodnar.

The diplomat also argued that the decision to develop the factory in Ukraine was not only a political decision, "but also practical since a significant part of the models that will be produced at this plant will have components of Ukrainian production," adding that "it can be engines, other spare parts, wheels, many different things that are high-tech in our country and can be used for these aircraft."

Bodnar said Turkey-Ukraine relations are largely driven by defense technology cooperation. He claimed that "despite the war, our companies continue to fulfill their obligations," adding that "maybe not in such volumes as it was planned, but they do not leave this work, and it also shows how responsible a partner we are, which does not leave the Turkish side alone with its problems, first of all, in supplying those things that are needed for their defense."