As EU ties chill, UK-Turkey defense cooperation thrives While relations between the United Kingdom and Turkey are still strained, cooperation between the two countries on defense and aerospace projects is flourishing. REUTERS/Umit Bektas.

By Metin Gurcan

Sep 24, 2017

At a London seminar at the end of June, a senior British diplomat responded to Al-Monitor's questions about the implications of Prime Minister Theresa May’s unexpected visit to Ankara in January 2017 and other overt signs of rapprochement between Britain and Turkey. He started off by saying, “History repeats itself,” and continued, “Just as in 1580s, when England and the Ottoman Empire entered into economic and security cooperation against the Catholic bloc in continental Europe, today the same dynamics stimulated the cooperation between Turkey and England.” Defense, the aerospace industry and security are the most visible fields of cooperation between the two countries. May, who on Jan. 28 became the first high-level European leader to visit Turkey after the July 2016 coup attempt, witnessed the signing of a critical 100 million-pound ($135 million) contract between the British defense and aerospace company BAE Systems and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS). The two companies will cooperate in developing the engine, avionics, radar and software for the fifth generation TF-X Turkish stealth warplane project.

Turkey has never before developed and manufactured a warplane. Lacking the experience and human resources for such a monumental project, Turkey needs an experienced partner. With a budget of $7 billion, Ankara will develop the TF-X at the TAI-TUSAS plant near Ankara that previously worked on F-16s. Planning for the TF-X will be completed by 2019. The first prototype will be available in 2023 and the planes will start flying for the Turkish air force after 2030. In the long tern, the plan calls for production of 250 planes for Turkey and then marketing them to third countries, primarily in Europe.

Defense analyst Arda Mevlutoglu said defense and security cooperation between Turkey and Britain has advanced substantially without much publicity over the past few years. “The most critical element of the TF-X project is its engine. We know that British Rolls Royce has entered into partnership with Turkey’s Kale Company for joint engine production,” he said. Defense analyst Hakan Kilic told Al-Monitor that Turkey had first thought of developing Swedish Saab’s JS 39 Gripen 5 model as its fifth-generation warplane but had turned to Britain instead. He said, "Today, apart from China’s J-20 and J-31, the US F-22 and F-35 and Russia’s T-50 and Japan’s X-2, there are no other fifth-generation plane projects on the drawing board. When Turkey realized that it couldn’t cope with production of a fifth generation by itself, it started looking for partners and Britain emerged as the most acceptable candidate. I think Britain feels that if the TF-X succeeds, then it could be promoted as the European fighter and draw in France and Italy to jointly produce an EF-2000 Typhoon that excludes Germany.”

In reality, Turkish-British defense and security cooperation has thrived because of deteriorating relations between Germany and Turkey in these fields.

Representatives of British and Turkish defense industry and aerospace firms gathered at a reception held by Turkey’s EU Minister Omer Celik at Turkey’s London embassy on Sept. 11. Both the minister and Britain’s Ankara ambassador Richard Moore, who has a significant number of Twitter followers in Turkey, tweeted about the developing ties between two countries.