Turkey has awarded three companies, including France and Italy’s Eurosam, an 18-month contract to study future designs for a joint long range air and missile defense system.
The deal was signed during a meeting Jan. 5 in Paris between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron. Turkish defense contracting companies Aselsan and Roketsan will work with Eurosam to develop the missile defense for future use by Turkey’s Air Force.
“Eurosam has been fully dedicated to air and missile defense since its inception in 1989 and has acquired world-class expertise as well as a unique experience of cooperation in this strategic and eminently sovereign domain. Today, we are proud to provide this know-how to the co-operation between France and Italy with their Turkish ally within NATO. I am confident that this cooperation will also last several decades and will contribute to bringing our countries closer on a strategic level, as it has been the case for the last thirty years with France and Italy,” said Abdoulaye Samba, Eurosam Managing Director, during the contract signing ceremony Jan. 5.
The contract follows a November 2017 letter of intent between Turkish, French and Italian defense officials for future missile defense projects.
Officials at the joint meeting aim for the new long range air and missile defense system to be ready by the middle of the next decade.
Eurosam, Aselsan and Roketsan are tasked with developing official requirements for the joint system to deter stealth aircraft, UAVs, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.