6th SAVTEK, Turkey’s prominent biennial defence technology congress was organized on 20-21-22 June 2012 at Middle East Technical University, Ankara. With 195 presentations, the congress attracted more than 1100 participants during three days.SAVTEK congress series have been organized by the Middle East Technical University (BILTIR) and supported by the Turkish defence industry (SASAD), Turkish Armed Forces General Staff (Scientific Information Decision Support Centre-BILKARDEM), Land Forces (Land Forces War Collage) and Ministry of Defence (Undersecreteriat of Defence Industries-SSM, R&D Department of MND).

SAVTED 2012 continued the tradition of evaluation of Turkish defence industry and technology in past two years. Undersecretary for Defence Industries Mr. Murad Bayar presented a detailed analysis on the current status of Turkish defence industry and the 2012-2016 Strategic Plan of SSM (Undersecretariat for Defence Industries). He highlighted the importance of a "sustainable and competitive" industry. Within this scope he emphasised three major issues, namely, the importance of exports, contribution of defence industry to high technology public projects and providing logistic support for the systems and equipment delivered to Turkish Armed Forces.