Drones rise to fame worldwide namely after Karabakh war Forbes analyst Paul Iddon writes

It will also contribute to the unprecedented proliferation of armed drones unfolding in Central Asia.

More significantly, a mere week before Iran unveiled the Dushanbe factory, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) announced in a May 11 statement that it signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan Engineering to produce TAI’s Anka drones on Kazakh soil jointly. The deal includes maintenance and repair services from TAI and technology transfer. Kazakhstan is the first country outside Turkey in which Anka drones will be assembled.

Kazakhstan isn’t the first country with which Turkey sought to co-produce its drones.

Ankara sold its close South Caucasus ally Azerbaijan Bayraktar TB2 drones that Baku successfully used during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war against Armenian forces. After that war, Turkey and Azerbaijan sought to expand their defence ties by signing the Shusha Declaration in June 2021. One project reported on at the time was the construction of a factory for producing Turkish drones, likely TB2s, on Azerbaijani soil. The present status of that project is unclear.

Another country Turkey had plans to build its drones with was Ukraine. Kyiv had procured a sizable fleet of Bayraktar TB2s beginning in 2019 and was very happy with its acquisition. Indeed, the TB2’s successful performance in combat against attacking Russian forces since the Feb. 24 invasion has not disappointed the Ukrainians.

Last October, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that Kyiv would build a factory to produce Turkish drones on its soil.

“A land plot on which the factory will be built has already been chosen,” he told a press conference.

While the subsequent Russian invasion has undoubtedly affected these plans, it may not have undone them, which seemed highly possible in the early days of the conflict. After all, Turkey has continued supplying Ukraine with TB2s since the war began, dubiously arguing that the deliveries do not constitute state-to-state arms sales since Baykar, a private company, is making them. Ankara will most likely have a role in helping Ukraine rebuild its defence industry after the war, and Kyiv would undoubtedly want more Turkish hardware, especially given the impressive performance of Ukrainian TB2s in this war.

Ukraine is the latest war in which the TB2 has proven itself in combat. However, it was Azerbaijan’s earlier decisive use of these drones in the fall of 2020 which dramatically increased foreign interest in them. Another drone that proved its proficiency in combat in that war was the Harop drone built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Unlike the TB2, the Harop is a loitering munition designed primarily for suppression of enemy air defence/destruction of enemy air defences (SEAD/DEAD) operations. The Azerbaijanis used their Harops against Armenia’s S-300 air defence missile systems during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Last fall, it was reported that Israel and Morocco were on the verge of a deal to co-produce suicide drones, likely Harops, in the North African country. The Israeli press also reported that IAI received $22 million from Morocco that year, fuelling speculation that it was part of a drone deal. Morocco has also ordered TB2s. A combination of Harops and TB2s could prove lethal in the arsenal of any military, as Azerbaijan aptly demonstrated almost two years ago.