By Richard Weitz (vol. 3, no. 14 of the Turkey Analyst)

Turkey is rapidly expanding its military forces by domestically producing many weapons and importing many more. The country is currently the world’s fourth largest arms importer, but the Turkish government is vigorously seeking to reduce its dependence on foreign arms suppliers while still retaining the capacity to wage conventional warfare in cooperation with its NATO allies.  Turkish companies have also begun to assume the position as leading international arms sellers, making Turkey the world’s twenty-eight largest national arms exporter. In 2008, Turkish defense companies spent 228 million US Dollars on research and development. If continued, this trend will further reduce Turkey’s need to purchase foreign arms, and enhance Ankara’s strategic autonomy.

By Halil M. Karaveli (vol. 3, no. 13 of the Turkey Analyst)

After the failure of the Kurdish opening and the offensive of the PKK, Turkey gropes for a way out of its Kurdish impasse. Recent statements by the Turkish Chief of the General staff General İlker Başbuğ suggest that a major military incursion into northern Iraq to stamp out the PKK is being considered. Yet it is unlikely that the Turkish state leadership truly believes that there is a military solution to the challenge posed by the demands of the Kurdish population. The moment when that challenge will have to be properly addressed is only being postponed.

By Gareth H. Jenkins (vol. 3, no. 13 of the Turkey Analyst)

July 10, 2010 marks the second anniversary of the publication of the first indictment in what has become known as the Ergenekon case.  A total of over 600 suspects have been detained, of whom more than 400 have been formally charged in indictments running to thousands of pages and backed by more than a million pages of supporting evidence. Yet the prosecutors have yet to extract a single confession, much less produce any convincing proof that the clandestine network they described even exists. Indeed, far from strengthening the prosecutors’ case, the increasing volume of “evidence” has steadily undermined it. Most disturbingly, not only is much of the material self-contradictory or manifestly absurd but – particularly in what has become known as the Sledgehammer investigation – some appears to have been manufactured.