Turkey

Background

Turkey¹ is seen as a key ally of the West in the Middle East and Mediterranean, and as such has been one of the world's major recipients of sophisticated arms for the past twenty years. This is despite the leading role of the armed forces within Turkish society and government, its occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974, its long established military rivalry with Greece and its appalling human rights record with respect to its Kurdish population. During the long war against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the south-east of the country, the region was depopulated in an attempt to deny the area to the PKK. Two million people were forcibly displaced and 3,000 Kurdish villages destroyed, involving massive violations of human rights and the laws of war². It has been documented that weapons supplied by the US, Germany, Russia and the UK have been used to commit atrocities³. Western powers have also contributed to the massive build-up of the Turkish military-industrial complex.

Turkey's military spending and suppliers

Though the proportion of NATO countries' GNP devoted to military spending has been declining throughout the 1990s, Turkey's spending has gone in the opposite direction despite the country's relative poverty and serious financial problems. Much of this military spending is used to purchase arms from abroad and build up an indigenous high-tech arms industry. The latest available figures show that Turkey's historic dependence on the US for its arms imports continues, with 79% of Turkey's arms imports coming from the US. US companies supplying Turkey with new attack helicopters, military transport helicopters, naval helicopters, AWACS aircraft and the Joint Strike Fighter.

The UK role

The UK continues a steady but relatively low level of arms exports to Turkey, accounting for approximately 1% of Turkey's arms imports. UK companies have been involved in important contracts supplying Turkey's military with the type of weapons it has used in the past to commit human rights violations. Land Rovers are assembled under licence in Turkey and converted by Otokar into armoured vehicles. In 1995 and 2001 deals, these vehicles were then sold to Algeria. Heckler & Koch, a subsidiary of BAE Systems from 1991 to December 2002, manufactures sub-machine-guns in Turkey under licence. The Turkish manufacturer, MKEK, then re-exports the guns – previous clients have included Bosnia, Chile, Botswana, Kuwait, Libya, Pakistan, Peru, and the UAE. The UK is also involved, through MBDA, in a major co-production deal with Turkey to produce Rapier surface-to-air missiles.

DSEi

MKEK, BAE Systems, Heckler & Koch and Land Rover are all exhibiting at DSEi along with other suppliers from Europe, Israel, and, especially, the US. A delegation from Turkey has been officially invited.

1 Primarily sourced from Nicholas Gilby, 'Nurturing Turkey's war machine', CAAT, March 2003
2 www.hrw.org/reports/1995/Turkey.htm, accessed 16.08.03
3 See www.hrw.org/reports/1995/Turkey.htm and Nicholas Gilby, March 2003