Terror In Turkey Awakens Local Defense Industry
This post is also available in: 
עברית (Hebrew)
Turkey has been in an uproar since last July, with violent outbreaks, protests and clashes between the Kurdish minority and police forces. This wave of violence obviously spells trouble for some, but for local armored vehicles manufacturers it means business.
Turkish government and military officials said they do not see an imminent end to the spiral of violence and that necessary gear, including scores of armored vehicles, will be acquired as part of an anti-terror campaign. “Whether or not attacks [on security forces] subside, we shall assume that the threat is there and will buy every equipment or system necessary to fight it,” said one senior security official. “Armored vehicles of different specifications will be one of the backbones of our shopping list.”
Members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in its battle for autonomy, have killed nearly 200 security officials since July when it ended a 2013 cease-fire after a jihadist suicide bomber killed more than 33 pro-Kurdish activists in a small Turkish town on the Syrian border. Most Turkish casualties took place in improvised explosive device (IED) attacks.
Defense News reports that the Turkish Finance Ministry said government spending for vehicles rose more than 10-fold to 629 million liras (US $216.7 million) in the first eight months of 2015 from nearly 60 million liras in the same period of 2014. “With accelerating moves to fight terrorism this year, some spending, which had earlier been scheduled to be made at the end of the year, has been rescheduled to earlier dates,” a statement from the ministry said.
Officials said new orders will be placed especially for the Kirpi, a mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle developed by Turkish producer BMC. “Although there is also a need for standard [armored] carriers, MRAP vehicles will come in more urgent need,” one official said. “Standard carriers have proven to be vulnerable to PKK’s IED attacks”, whereas, according to BMC, no casualties were suffered in a Kirpi.
The Kirpi is the country’s first locally designed and developed MRAP. In 2009, BMC won a contract with the Turkish government to deliver 468 Kirpis. Follow-on orders for the Army and the police are likely, officials said. The Kirpi can accommodate 13 personnel and can move over any terrain at a maximum speed of 105 kilometers per hour. BMC said it is now developing an armed version of the vehicle.
As the Kurdish terrorists are using more advanced and more destructive IEDs, so will the counter means develop and improve. Though lamentable, this may have been the wake-up call for Turkey’s indigenous defense industry.
