Eurasia Press & News
Ankara will not share military secrets with Beijing, Deputy Minister of Defence Industry of Turkey Murat Bayar said.
According to him, in the case of ratification of the contract with China, at the first stage a total of 288 long range missiles will be acquired.
The deputy minister also stressed that if the contract with the Chinese CPMIEC firm is not ratified, the government will consider a proposal from the French-Italian company Eurosam.
Earlier it was reported that on September 2013 at a meeting of the Turkish Defence Industry Executive Committee it was announced that the Chinese CPMIEC company won the tender for the creation of long range missiles in Turkey.
It was also reported that these missiles will be created by the Chinese company in cooperation with Turkish companies.
The Chinese company’s project which envisages manufacturing FD- 2000 missiles technically leaves the Russian, American and French-Italian companies projects behind.
A meeting of the executive committee of the Turkish defence industry was chaired by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the participation of the head of the Turkish General Staff Necdet Ozel, Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz and Deputy Minister of the Defence Industry Murad Bayar.
In addition, it is reported that the U.S. authorities informed Turkey of their concerns about the country’s intentions to cooperate with China in the creation of missile defence systems.
Also it is reported that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the priority for Turkey is to create the missiles in his own country. At present, the government has not yet decided on the issue.
