TSAMTO, June 8. Trying to convince the Turkish authorities to support its application to join NATO, Finland said that it could consider the possibility of acquiring a Turkish-made UAV.
Finland, together with Sweden, applied for NATO membership last month, but faced resistance from Turkey. Ankara accuses the Scandinavian countries of being a haven for terrorists, including members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist group, and demands that they lift the previously imposed arms export embargoes on Ankara.
According to the Financial Times, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said at a press conference that Turkey has a number of weapons technologies that may be of interest to Finland. These include, in particular, UAVs. At the same time, the minister noted that he does not want to rush things, and intends to assess the state of the ongoing negotiations between the parties. P. Haavisto said that Finland and Turkey could conclude contracts for the supply of weapons with each other if they were members of the alliance.
According to experts, P. Haavisto was referring to the Bayraktar TB2 UAVs, which have been actively used in recent years in conflicts in Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh and now in Ukraine.
Sweden and Finland banned the export of weapons to Turkey after the military operation initiated by the Armed Forces of this country in 2019 to sweep northern Syria east of the Euphrates from the detachments of the Kurdish "People's Self-Defense Forces" (SNC /YPG).
Ankara considers the SNC and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist organizations. The PKK is also recognized as a terrorist organization in the European Union and the United States.
Negotiations between Turkish officials and delegations from Sweden and Finland have so far made little progress in the direction the Scandinavians need. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on June 1 that the Nordic countries had not yet provided Turkey with answers corresponding to its expectations. This increases the likelihood that Sweden and Finland will not be accepted into NATO at the summit to be held at the end of June in Madrid.
Currently, the acquisition of Bayraktar TB2 by the armed forces of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Morocco, Niger, Poland, Ukraine, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan has been confirmed. The Armed Forces of Serbia, Pakistan, Iraq, Albania, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Saudi Arabia also declared their interest in the supply of Turkish UAVs.
The special operation in Ukraine confirmed that Bayraktar TB2 is effective in conducting operations against partisan formations in the absence of air defense systems. In conventional warfare, despite their striking capabilities, UAVs are quickly destroyed by air defense means. According to the latest information, since the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine, Russian air defense systems have shot down about 90 Bayraktar TB2 UAVs.