Turkey loads up with UK weapons
Britain’s bid for post-Brexit trade includes £50m in sales to Ankara since failed coup
DUBLIN // Britain’s push to expand its trade networks after the Brexit referendum has included the sales of weaponry worth about £50 million to Turkey since the failed coup last July.
The latest export statistics reveal sales of missiles, bombs, drones, aircraft and body armour to Turkey.
Last year, London identified Turkey as one of the £12 billion (Dh54.85bn) British defence industry’s 35 key markets.
Since 2015, Turkey has bought about £ 330m worth of arms from the UK. By comparison, Turkey bought £48m worth of arms in 2010.
The sales come as Turkey faces its most precarious security situation in decades.
Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has launched a crackdown on opposition parties and civil groups in response to last July’s failed coup.
In August, Ankara launched a land and air military offensive into Syria to fight ISIL and Kurdish militants, while continuing a domestic campaign against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
In response, ISIL and Kurdish extremist groups have carried out suicide attacks in the past year – including on Istanbul’s main airport and at the Reina nightclub on New Year’s Eve – that caused many casualties.
The increase in arms sales benefits Britain and Turkey, as they face their own different but pressing challenges.
Last September, Boris Johnson visited Turkey for the first time as Britain’s foreign secretary and signalled London’s intent to continue business as usual with Mr Erdogan’s government.
“What I hope for is a jumbo free trade deal between the United Kingdom and Turkey,” Mr Johnson said.
In 2015, the last year for which figures are available, bilateral trade stood at £11.2bn.
The British government’s intent to begin negotiating new trade deals has caught the attention of officials in EU countries.
In Brussels last week, Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, stressed that Britain could only sign such deals after the UK completed its departure from the EU.
Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s foreign minister, worried that Britain’s negotiations would build up its trade networks with the rest of the world while overlooking its importance to the EU.
“So if the UK will be able to sign economic and trade agreements with many serious actors of the world economy, and if the EU is not able to build this kind of cooperation with the UK, then it is going to be a very unfavourable position for us,” Mr Szijjarto said.
But as the British government seeks to use its arms industry to strengthen its economy ahead of Brexit, there is growing domestic criticism. Andrew Smith, a spokesman for Campaign Against Arms Trade, a British non-profit organisation, said weapons exports to Turkey were benefiting the country’s increasingly repressive regime.
An estimated 90,000 civil servants have lost their jobs in Turkey since Mr Erdogan began consolidating his power after defeating the coup last July.
About 40,000 people – judges, bureaucrats, army generals, teachers and civil rights activists – have been arrested.
“The levels of repression in Turkey have certainly gone up since the coup,” Mr Smith said. “But there have been concerns about human rights in Turkey for a few years now.”
Last October, Turkey’s justice minister, Bekir Bozdag, denied there were human rights abuses in the country. Speaking to The Guardian newspaper, a UK government spokeswoman insisted that Britain “operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world”.
“We rigorously examine every application on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria,” the spokeswoman said.
“Our export licensing system allows us to respond quickly to changing facts on the ground. We have suspended or revoked licences when the level of risk changes and we constantly review local situations.”
Turkey identified by Britain as one of the 35 key markets for country’s £12 billion defence industry