Minister of National Defense Hulusi AKAR: “We Continue to Develop Our Defense Capabilities Both for the Surface & Underwater of Our Homeland!”
Defence Turkey: Dear Minister, we would like to start our interview with your evaluation of 2020 in terms of defense and security. Could you briefly summarize for our readers the key activities and projects of the Ministry of National Defense carried out in 2020?
MoND Hulusi AKAR: We have launched critical projects under the leadership of our Dear President and his support and encouragement. The year 2020 was a quite productive and successful year where we reaped the fruits of our indigenous and national projects in the defense industry and where we took the initial steps towards the projects we will execute in the upcoming years.
The MİLGEM National Ship Project stands out as one of these projects and our Ministry owns all the intellectual and industrial property rights of MİLGEM. The fourth ship of this project, which we consider as the “flagship of our Naval Warfare Industry”, was built at the Istanbul Shipyard Command.
As it is known, we carried this project beyond our borders by signing a contract with our friend and brother country Pakistan. This project, executed under the title “Pakistan MİLGEM Corvette Project”, is a system exported with a single contract of the highest contract value. In 2020, we realized the sheet cutting of two ships under this project.
Construction of the Istanbul Frigate -the first ship of the İSTİF Class Frigate Project- was underway in the previous period and it met the Blue Homeland in the beginning of 2021. On the other hand, we launched the pre-construction design activities of two “Offshore Patrol Vessels” in line with the needs of our Naval Forces Command. These vessels will also be built at our military shipyards.
With these projects, we continue to develop our defense capabilities both for the surface and underwater of our homeland. To execute the submarine design and construction with domestic and national facilities and capabilities, we founded the National Submarine (MİLDEN) Design Project Office within the body of the Gölcük Shipyard Command. This office launched its design activities in 2020. While “PİRİREİS”, the first submarine of the New Type Submarine Project being constructed at the Gölcük Shipyard Command was being docked, we realized the first welding ceremony of the project’s fifth submarine “SEYDİ ALİ REİS.”
While we are building new ships, we are taking steps towards protecting the cultural and historical significance of our ships that are retired. For instance, we delivered the Ç-128 landing craft, which performed during the Cyprus Peace Operation and was the last ship in its class, to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on July 20, 2020.
We are also conducting activities regarding the platforms in our inventory. Retrofitting is among these activities. A contract was signed between ASFAT and AIRBUS for the retrofit of nine A400M aircraft and the retrofit activities were launched. A400M’s retrofit activity was in fact under AIRBUS’ responsibility but in this way, it started to be performed for the first time outside of Spain by our engineers and technicians at our 2nd Air Maintenance Factory Directorate. Thanks to the capabilities we acquired, we believe that we will become an attraction center for retrofit and maintenance activities.
The design, prototype, serial production and certification activities of the Mechanical Mine Clearing Equipment (MEMATT) were completed by ASFAT in a short period such as 14 months and it was exported to Azerbaijan. This system is of vital essence as it serves the security of the Azerbaijan army and our brothers. Thus, we are rightfully proud to support Azerbaijan in this field.
Defence Turkey: Could you inform us about the Ministry of Defense’s procurement system principles and its procurement activities? To which areas do you think the negotiations to be held between IDEF participants contribute?
MoND Hulusi AKAR: The principles of our procurement system are to use public resources effectively and efficiently, execute the supply chain which will render the military factories and shipyards functional, minimize foreign dependency, launch modern implementations in the procurement system and meet urgent needs rapidly.
Within the framework of these principles, the signing of the Strategic Cooperation Agreements for enabling the domestic supply of goods and services previously procured from foreign countries and identification of the Approved Suppliers that will allow the purchase of goods and services from authorized suppliers are among our recent activities.
Thanks to these activities, the AFGM has signed Strategic Cooperation Agreements for 205 items with 22 companies so far, and over 300 companies that met the criteria identified by authorized institutions and organizations were monitored by our Ministry and identified as Approved Suppliers. Such Approved Suppliers are being invited to participate in procurement activities.
We can procure from specialized suppliers that are major brands, and we can place orders to these suppliers for production to fulfill our tasks in a sustainable, determined and successful fashion and to maintain the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) characteristics of operational readiness, efficiency, deterrence and prestige with all its units and elements. To sum it up, we have been proceeding confidently within the scope of a “dynamic, plain and effective procurement model.”
The IDEF Fair offers us opportunities in this progress. As it is known, in addition to being a platform for marketing products, IDEF gathers procurement authorities. The number of negotiations at IDEF reached over 4,000 at IDEF ‘19 with an increase of 80% from 2,240 at IDEF ‘17. I believe the meetings at IDEF ‘21 will be contributing to the new procurement cooperation in the Turkish Defense Industry and for the development of new projects.
Defence Turkey: New technologies acquired with the research and development (R&D) activities and the developed indigenous products play a remarkable role in the development of the Turkish defense industry. What is the Ministry of National Defense’s perspective on R&D and what is your evaluation on the contribution of R&D projects to the Turkish Defense Industry?
MoND Hulusi AKAR: R&D projects have a significant share in fulfilling the Turkish Armed Forces needs in a cost-efficient manner and with a maximum extent of indigenous products and technologies. At this point, we aim to realize projects with basic and advanced technologies and with a high level of local content rate with our R&D activities. We have been following the technologies regarding weapon systems, communication, electronic warfare, material technologies, artificial intelligence and crypto fields, and we are working to achieve new R&D projects.
We have been providing support to R&D projects conducted by our Ministry via the signed project-based contracts. Regarding the projects as part of TÜBİTAK’s 1007 Program, we also continue to provide support executed under the coordination of our Ministry.
Within the scope of the National Technology Move and the will displayed by our government in this area and as a result of the activities carried out for fulfilling critical system, equipment and technologies required by the Turkish Armed Forces within our country to the maximum extent and to minimize foreign dependence, the local content rate reached 41.6% in 2007 from 20% in 2002. The rate increased to 54% in 2011 and it is currently at the level of 70%. Our aim is to raise this level to 75-80% in 2023.
Defence Turkey: What are the Turkish Armed Forces’ leading modernization projects? What are your comments on these projects that are being conducted with national resources?
MoND Hulusi AKAR: We have been executing our modernization projects in a determined fashion to render the warfare equipment within the Land, Naval and Air Forces Commands’ inventories with today’s technology and to increase the local content rate by minimizing procurements from abroad. Some of these projects are as follows:
New Generation T-155 K/M Fırtına Howitzer Project
T-155 Modern Towed Howitzer Modernization Project
C-130 Erciyes Avionics Modernization Program (Erciyes Project)
CN-235 Avionic Modernization Project
The MİLGEM Ada Class Corvette Project is a milestone in Turkish Naval history and our national defense industry. Thanks to the project launched in May 2004, the design and integration of a complex surface vessel that aligns with today’s technology and offers high standards and war power were conducted with national facilities in Turkey for the first time with the support of the domestic industry.
With this project, the indigenization of many technologically critical systems was achieved, know-how was obtained and technology generation literally started in our country. At the same time, our country entered the league of countries with national warship design and construction capabilities due to this project.
Therefore, it is possible to define the MİLGEM project as a momentum stimulating the national resources of the defense industry. As a matter of fact, all design, integration and analysis stages of the project, including the integration of the Combat Management System developed indigenously for the first time in a warship were accomplished in an indigenous manner. Throughout the project, the local content rate was raised to the level of 70% and business opportunities to over 50 domestic companies were provided within this scope of this project.
The national warship construction projects such as the ADA Class Corvette and ISTANBUL Class Frigate projects serve the following purposes:
Uniting the know-how and experience within our borders,
Directing numerous domestic industrial enterprises, universities and scientific organizations towards a common goal,
Developing indigenous warship design and construction capabilities in Turkey.
Our vessels built and put into service as part of these projects have been displaying successful performance across the globe. By contributing to the projects, this success which we are rightfully proud of increases the confidence of the domestic and national stakeholders and boosts their will to take part in the subsequent projects.
The MİLGEM Project is the most concrete example of this case. We aim to achieve the performance we reached in surface vessels also in our platforms operating underwater and embrace the success story which we accomplished in MİLGEM also in MİLDEN in the upcoming period. Other activities I would like to underline at this point are the National Fighter Jet, SİPER Air Defense System and Anadolu Amphibious Assault Ship projects.
Defence Turkey: For the seventh time, Istanbul will be hosting the 15th IDEF which will be held in August. Could you inform us about the activities of the Ministry of National Defense regarding IDEF ‘21? What new features will we see at IDEF ‘21? Could you elaborate on the number of invited countries and the planned critical events for this “Eurasian Gathering?”
MoND Hulusi AKAR: We have been carrying out the preparations for the 15th International Defense Industry Fair – IDEF ‘21 in coordination with the relevant authorities in line with the IDEF ‘21 Implementation Principles that identify the tasks and responsibilities of the parties, under the auspices of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, hosted by the Ministry of National Defense and under the management and responsibility of the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation. The event is planned to be held at the TÜYAP Fair Center on August 17-20, 2021.
We have been conducting our struggle determinedly against the Covid-19 pandemic which has been dominating the globe since 2020. We also displayed this determined manner with IDEF'21 and adopted various measures to minimize risks during the fair.
The activities to this end are being carried out by the experts from the Presidency, Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health and the organizer company under the coordination of the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation.
We do not expect any changes regarding participation in terms of the number of delegations and companies. We took care of arrangements to prevent crowds and to ensure the protection of social distancing in the fair zone arranged by physical measures against the pandemic.
IDEF ‘21 will gather companies and visitors with expertise in land, naval, aviation, space, transportation, logistics and security areas once again. We have already invited 149 countries to IDEF ‘21.
We believe that this year we will exceed the IDEF ‘19 visitor satisfaction rate of 95%. We are certain that the need “to see the innovations” at the top of the reasons for visiting the fair will be met with the new equipment and vehicles to be displayed at this year’s event and we wish that the fair will be an efficient one for all participants.
Defence Turkey: Dear Minister, thank you for sparing your time for our readers
