Turkish officials said on Thursday that construction work had started on the country's first indigenous submarine, MILDEN, adding that Ankara had also completed its first sale of a corvette warship to a NATO ally by inking an agreement with Romania.
NATO member Türkiye, which has ramped up defense industry production and cut dependence on foreign providers, said last week that contractors had begun building its indigenous TF-2000 naval air defense destroyer. It will be part of the planned "Steel Dome" multilayered air defense system.
"Following the construction of the first block of the TF-2000 Air Defense Destroyer at our Istanbul Shipyard Command, construction of the first test block of our National Submarine (MILDEN) has begun at our Gölcük Shipyard Command," the National Defense Ministry said at its weekly briefing on Thursday.
It also said the ASFAT company operating under its jurisdiction had inked a deal with Romania's Defense Ministry to export one Akhisar light corvette, marking the first such sale by Türkiye to a NATO ally.
The ministry also recalled that last week, the Kızılelma unmanned warplane, developed by Baykar, successfully destroyed an airborne target in the Black Sea using the Aselsan-produced Murad AESA radar and Gökdoğan beyond-visual-visual (BVR) air-to-air missile developed by TÜBITAK SAGE, the Defense Industry Research and Development Institute of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye, marking a world first.
Türkiye has reduced its dependency on foreign sources notably in the past two decades, emerging as a growing defense player with a series of projects and products involving drones, naval platforms and land vehicles.
Last week, the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) announced that Turkish defense companies have signed $6.5 billion (TL 275.90 billion) worth of contracts to reinforce and develop the "Steel Dome" air system.
The recent report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) also showed that Türkiye added one more company to the list of the world's top 100 weapons makers as global sales of arms and military services hit a new record last year.
