NATO Industry Forum Held in Istanbul
The NATO Industry Forum 2013 concluded after a series of speeches and panel sessions discussing ways to improve NATO-Industry collaboration. The turnout this year was massive with almost 500 representatives from NATO and Industry.
This year’s forum took place in Istanbul and was hosted by Turkey. Representing the NATO Headquarters, the Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, spoke about how Industry and NATO can better work together in areas such as Smart Defence. Ambassador Vershbow said, “We are keen to promote a new level of cooperation between NATO and our defence industry. The key objective of our NATO-Industry Forum here this week is to bring us closer to such a mutually beneficial relationship. And I am confident we will get there.” Vershbow stated that “We are faced with increasingly complex global security challenges and shrinking defence budgets in many of our NATO nations. These two factors combined mean that effective security today requires a new level of multinational cooperation.
Smart Defence and the Connected Forces Initiative were common themes among the numerous in-depth discussions. Since NATO has been working for some time to maximize efficiencies across the Alliance, ideas were tabled to examine how Industry can assist in that process. The senior host-nation official to attend, Turkish Undersecretary for Defence Industry, Mr. Murad Bayar, echoed this theme by saying, “I believe that this event will not only addresses a recognized need for more elevated dialogue between NATO and Industry to ensure the Alliance benefits from the best solutions to military requirements within expected budget and time constraints, but also let the participants come up with new thoughts which can result in more successful cooperation.
In his closing remarks, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), French Air Force General Jean-Paul Paloméros, talked about the need for greater cooperation with Industry across the full spectrum of readiness due to limited national resources.
SACT said that “a crucial extension of our collaboration with Industry revolves around innovation, to include better leveraging of joint research and technology development. Through this we must ensure that despite fiscal pressure, our militaries remain equipped with cutting-edge technology whenever and wherever necessary.”
Next year’s conference is expected to be held in Croatia during the country’s 5th anniversary as member of NATO.
Murad Bayar: “We aim to sign a Long Range Air Defence System Contract within the next 6 months or within a year”
Following the opening speeches of the forum that was held in Turkey this year for the first time NATO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Alexander Vershbow and Undersecretary for Defence Industries Murad Bayar replied to the questions of members of the press.
Undersecretary for Defence Industries Murad Bayar replied to the questions regarding the Long Range Air Defence System that recently became the first item of the agenda of NATO-Turkey relations. “Long Range Air Defence System tender has been a Project we have been working on for a long period. Within the scope of this program of great significance for Turkey’s air defence capacity, four companies and consortiums from four different countries participated to the tender. At its latest meeting Defence Industry Executive Committee, a decision for starting the contract negotiations with Chinese company CPMIEC has been given as a result of long studies. It is hard to announce an exact timeline in such complicated programmes. When the past and finalized programmes are taken into consideration, we are aiming to reach a reasonable level in contract negotiations within a 6 months or 1 year period. We would like to determine if it is possible to implement the Long Range Air Defence System Project with our first choice China”.
Bayar reminded that the best offer has been proposed by Chinese company CPMIEC during the tender and continued, “Surely the offers are ranked. The purchasing procedure usually starts with the signing of the contract with the first company, but when difficulties arise we will negotiate with the companies in the lower positions”. Murad Bayar expressed that they took NATO’s and ally countries’ vulnerabilities into consideration and continued “Turkey is a part of the NATO, we have to conduct a balanced study at this point as it is crucial for this system to contribute to National Air Defence capability as well as NATO’s Air Defence capacities. However the process shall be realized within the framework of Turkey’s own purchasing regulations”.
Regarding NATO’s reaction to Turkey’s selection of Chinese system, NATO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said “Calling it pressure would be wrong. Each country decides whichever military capacities to purchase herself. But when the systems purchased are evaluated from NATO’s perspective, it is of vital importance that ally countries operate together with all the capacities they have. This point is one of the main principles of this alliance. We highly trust Turkish authorities in this respect. They are also sensitive on this issue. No decision resolved yet.”
