Defence Turkey: Can we start our interview with an assessment of the first 6 months of 2022 from the perspective of the TÜBİTAK Defense Industries Research and Development Institute (SAGE), which was established in 1972 to conduct R&D in the defense industry as an institute of TÜBİTAK? 

Gürcan OKUMUŞ: The defense industry has been hot on the agenda both in our country and in the world in recent years. Significant progress has been achieved in our country, especially in many critical projects, and systems that were developed with our national resources and high local production rate continue to enter the inventory. But if we evaluate the year 2022 from today, I think it would be correct to say that the most consequential topic is the transformation of the tension between Ukraine and Russia, which is increasing step by step into a hot conflict. This war environment in our north has brought operational and geopolitically new considerations. I believe that using high volumes of ammunition and platforms in a short time reveals that production speed in the defense industry is as important as developing new products. We can say that an important topic for our country in 2022 is the potential cooperation created by the dialogue process that started with the UAE and Saudi Arabia for our defense industry companies.