Turkish satellite has no bar on monitoring Israel lands: Minister

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Science and Industry Minister Nihat Ergün has denied the existence of a claimed protocol between Turkey and Israel banning Turkish satellite Göktürk-2 from monitoring Israel lands.

“There aren’t any international limitations regarding the cameras used in the Göktürk-2 satellite,” Ergün said, answering a written motion filed by main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu.

He stressed that the satellite, which was launched almost a year ago, was fully under the control of the Air Forces Commandership alone, and was able to collect images from all over the world.

In the petition, Tanrıkulu also questioned whether some parts of Göktürk-2, which was presented as being “100 percent local,” were purchased from foreign countries. He asked whether it was true that the satellite’s cameras were purchased from South Korea, reaction wheels from the United States, magnetic torques from Germany, impulsion system from Israel, and whether vibration tests were conducted in France.

Responding to the petition, Ergün said the “locality rate” of the satellite was 80 percent in hardware and 100 percent in software, underscoring that “the most important quality of Göktürk-2 was its high locality rate.”

He also said the partnership of the Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) and the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), which was responsible for the production, had acquired some products and services within their internal regulatory rules.

Ergün added that the whole of the satellite system’s design, planning, integration and test operations were undertaken by Turkish engineers.