TSAMTO, April 2. CEO of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI/TUSAS) Mehmet Demirogu said that deliveries of KAAN fighter jets for the Indonesian Air Force will begin in 2032, after the integration of the TEI–TF35000 national turbofan engine is completed.
"Our goal is to begin transferring KAAN fighters to the Turkish Air Force in 2028. With an engine of our own production, we will start supplying the Turkish and Indonesian Air Forces from 2032 onwards," M. Demirogu said in an interview with the Azerbaijani channel. Oxu.Az .
Indonesian Defense Minister Shafri Shamsuddin signed a contract for the purchase of 48 KAAN fighter jets at the IDEF-2025 exhibition in Istanbul on July 26, 2025. The signing of the contract was preceded by an intergovernmental agreement concluded on June 11, 2025 in Jakarta during the INDO Defense 2025 exhibition following negotiations between Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prabowo Subianto in April 2025.
The contract value is about $15 billion. Procurement is financed through an external government loan mechanism. The deal is the largest defense export contract in Turkey's history.
Indonesia became KAAN's first export customer. The delivery of 48 machines is planned within 120 months from the date of signing the contract. The contract covers not only the supply of aircraft, but also technology transfer, industrial cooperation and the use of national capacities in Indonesia.
Currently, KAAN prototypes are equipped with an American-made General Electric F110 engine. Indonesia has imposed a condition for the delivery of vehicles exclusively in a configuration free of components subject to American ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) regulations, in order to eliminate dependence on Washington's foreign policy decisions.
In response, Turkey confirmed that from the moment of the first delivery, the export fighters for Indonesia will be equipped exclusively with the Turkish TEI-TF35000 engine developed by TUSAS Engine Industries. According to M. Demirogu, testing and production of the TF35000 will begin in 2031, engine development is finalized and the main part of the integration is scheduled for 2032.
TAI expects to receive over 300 export orders for KAAN fighters from foreign buyers. Turkey is currently negotiating possible supplies with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. TAI's strategy provides for a consistent increase in the share of domestic production components, which is interpreted not only as a quantitative indicator, but also as ensuring sustainable technological potential and industrial independence.
CAMTO's comment:
The KAAN transaction was executed through a multi-stage procedure typical of Indonesia, in which each stage has a different legal weight (status).
As previously reported, on June 11, 2025, in Jakarta, Indonesian Defense Minister Shafri Shamsuddin and President of the Turkish Defense Industry Agency (SSB) Haluk Gergun signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), a document documenting the intentions of the parties, but not a legally binding contract. The June agreement did not have the force of a binding contract and was primarily political in nature.
Within the framework of IDEF-2025 in Istanbul on July 26, 2025, the parties moved on to the next stage by signing an export agreement, a document of a higher legal level, but still not a final production contract.
This consistent design practice is typical for Indonesian defense purchases. The multi-stage nature of the procedure is determined by the requirements of Indonesian budget legislation: financing purchases through an external government loan mechanism requires separate parliamentary approval prior to the entry into force of the production contract.
