Organised this year under the auspices of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, IDEF 2017 13th International Defence Industry Fair conveyed a message to the international public opinion from Turkey, which has been struggling with problems inside and beyond its borders for a year and whose security forces’ reliability is under question: “We are standing still, stronger than ever!”

Turkish Armed Forces, which has recently worked overtime and become worn out against the background of trench operations, conflicts in Syria and northern Iraq, Russian crisis and July 15, receives the most support for recovery and restructuring from Turkish defence industry. In the context of supply restraints owing to embargo launched by some countries, Turkey, in an attempt to remind the embargo following the Cyprus Peace Operation, which played a vital role in the advancement of defence industry, showed presence with indigenous products developed by its domestic industry. On the one hand, there was T625 at the TAI stand; on the other hand, there were ROKETSAN’s air-to-air missiles Gökdoğan and Bozdoğan among many others including ASELSAN’s competitive solutions based on latest technology, MKEK’s Yavuz, SMEs as indicators of the broadened scope of supply chain and capability acquisition, and finally, university students attempting to contribute something at this early stage… They were all united to shout out that Turkey’s deterrence must not be put under test. Time will tell whether the international public opinion is able to draw a lesson from this call. However, one thing for sure is that the Turkish defence industry is aware of the mission accorded to it, and moves forward as a unified whole.