Projects worth $9.4 billion evaluated at top Turkish defense committee meeting
ANKARA
The Turkish defense industry held an executive committee meeting late on Jan. 31 for the first time under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Presidential Complex in Ankara.
Erdoğan chaired the meeting for the first time following a recent emergency rule decree announcing that the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) would be under the president’s full control rather than the Defense Ministry. Prior to the decree, the committee was chaired by the prime minister.
The Jan. 31 meeting was also attended by Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli and other senior officials.
“In the meeting, a total of 55 projects worth $9.4 billion were evaluated,” read a Turkish Presidency statement, which was released after the meeting.
The defense committee meeting was closed to media and lasted for nearly seven hours.
The committee decided to add “further indigenous and national systems” to help the military in the ongoing “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s Afrin, the statement added.
Turkey on Jan. 20 launched “Operation Olive Branch” to remove the People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the northwestern district of Syria.
