Western countries play a key role in equipping the Turkish army

Turkey recently launched a new attack on Syria with the help of jihadists in the Syrian National Army (it should not be confused with the Syrian regime army).

If we assess Turkey’s military equipment as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), we find that it depends entirely on arms manufacturers abroad, the Turkish army is equipped by the US, German and French military industries.

During the attack on the Afrin region in January 2018, the Turkish army used German Leopard tanks, and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel was forced to declare a freeze on arms exports to Turkey.

A total of 350 modern Leopard tanks were delivered to Turkey in mid-2000s despite the presence of Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan in power (he was prime minister in 2003). Germany also provided the Turkish army with Mercedes trucks and 40mm grenade launchers. Turkey produces an MSG 90 semi-automatic sniper rifle under a German license.

US military industries are the most important for Turkey, providing the Turkish army with heavy and light machine guns, anti-tank missiles, BGM missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, ten Super Cobra attack helicopters, 800 howitzer 155, 175 and 200 mm guns.

With regard to tanks, the United States supplied Turkey with 619 M-48 anti-Kurdish tanks, 760 M60 tanks, 900 anti-aircraft guns and 110 anti-aircraft self-propelled guns.

The Turkish Air Force has a lot of US equipment, including 13 Hercules C-130 transport planes, but Airbus has delivered 17 A400M aircraft to Turkey in recent years.

Turkey has US F-16, F-4, and F-5 fighter jets, missiles and missiles on the planes, whether US air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles, with the exception of some French Durandal missiles.

Turkey also has more than 3,500 built-in air-to-surface missiles and can target tanks, ships and buildings from short and long distances. Therefore, Turkey will not suffer from any possible ban on these weapons because it has sufficient stockpile. The United Kingdom has also delivered 86 Turkish Rabia air defense missiles to Turkey.

French-Turkish cooperation in the field of military communications satellites Turksat launched in 2008 and surveillance systems Gokturk launched in late 2016 was not cautious. The French company Matra supplied Turkish forces with the famous anti-tank missiles of Milan (632) and Ericks (400).

After Germany, France just announced a ban on arms exports to Turkey. But the UK categorically refused to follow its neighbors. As long as the United States continues to supply weapons to the Turkish military, Turkey will continue to threaten its neighbors.