Defence Turkey: Mr Şenel, first of all we would like to thank you for taking your time for this interview. As known, Turkey has taken significant steps during the last decade in land vehicle platforms thanks to SSM’s leadership as well as Turkish defence companies’ devoted studies. Also, Turkey has become one of the most important countries in the world that makes platform design and integration as well as transfers technology to third countries. Could you please make an evaluation for us on where we stand now and our capabilities achieved so far?

Only a decade ago, Turkish Land Platforms Industry was only capable of producing limited variants and limited number of vehicles under license, such as AFVs, 4x4 Land Rovers etc. Therefore we strictly depended on foreign suppliers, especially on the complex land systems.