"There is a huge demand, but main purpose is to make something together — co-production, co-design, co-investment," Aselsan CEO Ahmet Akyol told Breaking Defense of the international market.
“We have been working on this project almost a year now,” TAI CEO Mehmet Demiroğlu told Breaking Defense.
It's a move that lines up with comments from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who Tuesday at IDEF underlined Turkey's defense cooperation with countries as mutually beneficial partnerships.
The momentum toward an order builds off Turkish Minister of National Defence, Yasar Güler initially revealing in 2023 that talks were underway to buy 40 aircraft.
The deal, which covers the construction of one ship expected to be launched in 2028 and delivered to the navy by 2030, was inked between ASFAT CEO Mustafa Ilbas and Turkish navy commander Admiral Ercument Tatlioglu.
The Turkish president, for example, stressed that Turkish companies "supplied 65 of every 100 UAVs sold globally."
Host nation Turkey took advantage of the Istanbul exhibition, with defense firms showing off a host of new tech.
Blending superior optics, advanced stabilization and AI-powered autonomy in a compact and rugged system, ASELFLIR 600 delivers unmatched intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities.
In a response to an op-ed previously published on Breaking Defense, Barın Kayaoğlu and Özgür Ekşi argue that Turkey can and should be trusted with F-35s.