Economy

Producer of Turkish tank Altay split in lack of foreign support

Journalist Bahadır Özgür discusses why Tümosan AŞ, the designated engine producer of Turkish tank project Altay, has been split into two companies, even extending the saga of the ongoing domestic defense bid.

Albayrak Group, a Turkish holding company not to be confused with the businesses of the family of former minister and President Erdoğan’s son-in-law, is the parent company of Tümosan. Albayrak Group also owns Turkish daily Yeni Şafak. *

“Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries (SSM) signed an engine development deal with Tümosan on March 17, 2015 worth 190 million dollars. The deadline for the deal was 54 months later and there was a foreign partner requirement in the specifications. The same year, Tümosan struck a licensing and technology transfer deal with Austrian AVL. The Austrian government, citing Turkey’s stance on Syria as justification, didn’t allow such a transfer to be made to Turkey,” Özgür said in his article at Duvar English, recalling a former company statement that read “Tümosan has repeatedly met with companies from Germany, the U.K., South Korea, Spain, the U.S., Ukraine, Russia, Japan, and Canada. Since it was a requirement that technical support be sought from Western countries, it is now clear that due to political reasons, this business model is not able to be carried out.”

“Tümosan, cannot transfer technology or find financial resources from abroad, even for tractor production, let alone to produce engines for the defense industry. (…) These are the reasons for Tümosan’s split. However, this problem is not limited to the Albayrak family,” the article on the Altay tank project read.

Please click here to read the full article.

*This article was updated at 10.52 a.m. on Dec. 18.

YetkinReport

Recent Posts

EU wants Turkish military but not its membership: a case of hypocrisy

When I say hypocrisy of the European Union’s suggestion to Türkiye, I am not referring…

2 days ago

Ankara’s conditional support for US-bound SDF deal in Syria

The agreement announced on March 10 on the Kurdish-base Syrian Defense Forces, SDF joining the…

3 days ago

Future of NATO: with or without the US?

NATO has been the cornerstone of Western security for over seven decades, preventing another world…

3 days ago

“The genie is out of the bottle”. Ankara discusses a Europe without NATO

This sentence, uttered by the Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to the Financial Times, summarizes…

1 week ago

The future of the EU security without the US: A strategic reckoning

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has reshaped global geopolitics overnight. His…

1 week ago

Will Erdoğan untie or cut the PKK’s knot in Syria?

When I was writing my book “Kürt Kapanı (The Kurdish Trap)” about the full story…

2 weeks ago