Kyrgyzstan announced on Thursday that it would purchase Turkish drones to boost its defence capabilities. As TRT World reports, Kamchybek Tashiev, Chairman of the State Committee for National Security, said they placed an order to buy Turkish defence company Baykar made Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV).
The comments were made in an official ceremony by Tashiev, who said TB2 drones would be delivered soon. "Currently, Turkey is building Bayraktar armed drones for us. Only five countries have these. We will be one of those countries. These drones will be in our country soon," Tashiev said.
Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Qatar, Libya, Morocco, Poland, Tunisia are just some of the countries that have procured Turkish drones.
Ankara is not announcing its negotiations with other countries for possible drone sales, while some countries have announced their willingness to buy Turkish drones. Recently, Albania's parliament has approved an additional budget for the supply of Turkish drones.
Chairman Tashiev underlined that the personnel that will use the Turkish drones are in Turkey for their training, adding that they also bought Orlan-10 drones from Russia and around 40 armoured vehicles from the United Arab Emirates.
'Not preparation for conflict'
Separately Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov announced that they would update the equipment inventory of the armed forces in the following spring, and new purchases are now planned. "We have not started a conflict with anyone in 30 years. We have not seized foreign lands with weapons in our hands, and we will not do this in the future. If there is an attempt to occupy our lands, the answer will be harsh," Japarov said.
Turkish drones have proved their effectiveness in combat areas like Libya, Syria and the Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The UK Foreign Secretary Ben Wallace called them a "game-changer" in active combat zones. Turkey is also using drones in anti-terror operations with their high-precision missiles in Syria as well as Iraq.
