• World

    • Saudi, Turkey seal drone deal

    By on July 19, 2023

    RIYADH: A Turkish firm will provide drones to Saudi Arabia, Riyadh said Tuesday following a visit by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that aims to attract foreign investment. Several contracts, including the drone deal with the privately-owned Baykar, were signed during a meeting between Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Red Sea port of Jeddah on Monday, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said. Haluk Bayraktar, CEO of the drone manufacturer which is co-run by one of Erdogan’s sons-in-laws, in a tweet called the deal “the biggest defense and aviation export contract in the history of the Turkish Republic”.

    The value of the deal has not been made public. Erdogan, who in May elections won another five-year term, was in Saudi Arabia to kick off a Gulf tour seeking to drum up support for Turkey’s faltering economy. The Turkish leader is expected in neighboring Qatar later on Tuesday. After attending a Saudi-Turkish business forum in Jeddah on Monday, Erdogan and Prince Mohammed discussed “prospects for joint cooperation” in their meeting, SPA reported.

    The two leaders signed cooperation agreements in the fields of energy, direct investment, defense and media, the report said. It added that Saudi officials also signed “two contracts with the Turkish company Baykar”. Drones developed by Baykar have been used in Azerbaijan, Libya and Ukraine. Saudi Arabia “will acquire drones with the aim of enhancing the readiness of the kingdom’s armed forces and bolstering its defense and manufacturing capabilities”, Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman said on Tuesday.

    He did not specify the type of drone the kingdom is looking to procure. An Arab diplomat in Riyadh, requesting anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the press, said it was Baykar’s TB2 model. Last month, Kuwait said it struck a $367-million agreement to procure TB2 drones. This week’s visit is Erdogan’s second to Saudi Arabia since a recent rapprochement between Ankara and Riyadh, whose ties were strained by the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate. Erdogan’s current Gulf trip comes as Turkey battles a currency collapse and soaring inflation that has battered its economy. In March, Saudi Arabia deposited $5 billion in Turkey’s central bank. – AFP

    more recommended stories

    Terms of Use:

  • This website Arabian Daily is an individual’s property, not used for any commercial or sales purposes. What you see here are one’s random thoughts in action. I, by no means, endorse any product or party through this, unless stated explicitly.
  • All work you will find here is copyrighted unless stated otherwise. No part of this work can be reproduced in any way with the exception of a) if you share our work, it should link back to this website; b) if you quote any part of our work, it should be properly credited to us with a link to this website.
  • All images used on this website have been taken from open source image websites on the Internet. If any of them are copyrighted to you and you want us to take them down or add credits, please feel free to contact us here, or by using the contact form on this page.
  • The views expressed on Arabian Daily are solely ours. They do not represent any party or any particular school of thought. This website does not promote racism in any form.
  • Privacy Policy:
    This website will respect the readers’ and the writer’s privacy. We do not sell any of their personal or contact information to another company. We do not put your information on spam lists. Also, and more importantly, we are not responsible for the privacy practices of any of our advertisers or website commenters.
  • Reserve Rights: We reserve the right to change the focus on this website, to shut it down, sell it or to change the terms of use at our own discretion.