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Undersecretary for Defense Industries “a Complementary Component, a Catalyzing Factor Ushering Turkish Defense Projects Forward”

Defence Turkey Magazine gains the meticulous insight of Undersecretary for Defense Industries Prof. İsmail Demir in this exclusive interview

Tarih: Issue 70 - September 2016

Defence Turkey: Dear Undersecretary, first of all I would like to thank you for your time. Taking into consideration the critical period we have been going through recently in our country and in our region, could you please inform us on your strategies and plans for the upcoming period as the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries?

Actually, as the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries we are exerting our best efforts to advance in line with a certain strategy by avoiding the current developments. Without doubt the current issues have an influence on the process as well. Requirements and demands began to change in parallel with the emergence of concepts such as urban militarism. We have a pattern of behavior towards speeding up our actions in order to fulfill urgent requests. We have been experiencing numerous developments that are constantly reminding us of the importance of a self-sufficient defense industry when the overall conjuncture of the world is taken into account and the attitude adopted by Turkey during various foreign affairs or strategic issues are considered. Therefore, regarding the defense industry products we release to the field, we once again perceive that we need to pursue the indigenousness and independency to the maximum, being adopted by our Armed Forces in a more uncompromising and aggressive manner. To this end, we have to form a structure with a broader base. Surely our major, well-known companies will keep performing certain pioneering roles, yet being broad-based is quite important at this point. All resources of Turkey have to be on the table. We do not claim that all the resources are being used efficiently and I believe that there is a drawback here and by launching this into operation we have to progress through in a more broad-based manner, a more aggressive and more idealistic structure.