04.01.2026, Aleksandrovskoye.
The Turkish defense industry isn’t just posting world-class results; Ankara is now aiming for the stars—literally and figuratively—by venturing into space and nuclear reactor construction.
The main processes of Turkish domestic politics—economic problems, the struggle with the opposition, and reconciliation with the Kurds—merge in a complex interweaving, presenting the country’s leadership with increasingly difficult tasks.
But the most impressive, despite all this, is the breakthrough in the military-industrial complex. Based on the results of 2025, Turkey has become one of the exporting countries to demonstrate the most impressive achievements over the past 10 years.
Rossa Primavera News Agency presents an overview of the most important events in Turkey’s foreign policy in November and December.
Protests and Opposition
On October 24, Turkish media reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main competitor in the upcoming elections, former Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu, was acquitted in a corruption case (irregularities in a tender during his tenure as head of the Beylikdüzü district). However, the authorities immediately brought new charges against İmamoğlu, this time for espionage.
The new indictment has already been prepared and runs to four thousand pages. The former mayor is charged as the “leader of a criminal organization.” In connection with the case, 105 people have been arrested, 170 individuals are under judicial control, and 75 arrest warrants have been issued. İmamoğlu faces charges of bribery, tender manipulation, fraud to the detriment of the state, and money laundering from criminal activities across 142 episodes. The prosecutor requested a prison sentence for the politician ranging from 828 to 2,352 years.
Despite the new charges, the head of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Özgür Özel, stated that İmamoğlu remains the party’s main candidate for the future presidential elections. At the same time, the former mayor of Istanbul himself, whose likelihood of release is assessed as extremely low, expressed readiness back on August 13 to support another candidate, according to Bloomberg.
According to the results of an October public opinion poll conducted by HBS Araştırma, in a potential second round of presidential elections, 57.3% of respondents would vote for Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, and 42.7% for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In addition to arrests of Kemalists, Turkish authorities are trying to deprive the opposition of a voice in the media. In September, the opposition media holding Can Holding, which includes Habertürk, Show TV, and Bloomberg HT channels, already ceased broadcasting. And on October 25, authorities de facto halted the operations of the well-known opposition TV channel Tele1. Editor-in-chief Merdan Yanardağ was arrested on espionage charges, and the channel itself was placed under “temporary administration.“
The Kurdish Question
Since May 2025, Turkish authorities have cautiously but persistently been advancing the process of reconciliation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). This will not only allow stopping one of the long-running conflicts and making life in the country safer but will also give the government an opportunity to gain a new ally and improve electoral results. Such a perspective, of course, implies both pros and cons, so the authorities are playing on this field very carefully. Reconciliation with the Kurds is handled not by the president but by his key ally from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli (an ultra-right nationalist).
On October 26, Anadolu reported that the leadership of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had decided to withdraw its armed formations from Turkey to Iraq. Pro-Kurdish Turkish politician Ahmet Türk stated in an interview with Sabah that the current peace process differs from previous ones and has a real chance of success. In his opinion, MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli is showing a firm stance and is “taking the lead of the process.” Türk called his support a manifestation of state reason.
It is worth noting that Bahçeli even spoke in favor of releasing the previously very popular opposition politician, former co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş. He was detained in 2016 as part of a terrorism investigation and later sentenced to 42 years in prison.
Bahçeli also stated that a parliamentary commission should travel to İmralı Island to speak with the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence there and has agreed to initiate the reconciliation process. On November 24, Azerbaijani media Haqqin reported that three members of the commission—Hüseyin Yayman (ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP), Feti Yıldız (MHP), and Gülüstan Koyceğit (HDP)—flew to İmralı under the supervision of National Intelligence Organization (MİT) personnel. Öcalan emphasized the need to continue the reconciliation process and the importance of involving the Syrian wing of the organization in this process.
At the end of November, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), leader of the Kurdish formations People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers terrorist and affiliated with the banned PKK, Mazloum Abdi promised to visit Turkey in January of next year and meet with Öcalan there.
An expert from the Center for Strategic Studies, who was part of the AKP’s “group of wise men,” Abdurrahim Semavi, sees in Abdi’s offer a chance to reach an agreement between the SDF and Damascus. While Abdi is perceived by Ankara as hostile, the Turkish side hopes that Kurds in Syria will also heed Öcalan’s call to lay down their arms or at least integrate into the Syrian army.
Party Alliances and the Struggle for Power
In addition to attempts to secure the support of pro-Kurdish parties, Turkey is discussing the possible return to the ruling AKP of former key figures. One of them is the founder of the AKP, former Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, and the second is Ahmet Davutoğlu, the author of Turkey’s foreign policy doctrine “zero problems with neighbors,” essentially a conduit for Turkish “soft power.” In Russia, Davutoğlu is particularly remembered for ordering the downing of a Russian Su-24 aircraft on the Syrian border on November 24, 2015, when he was head of the Foreign Ministry; one pilot could not be saved and was killed by Turkmen militants in whose territory he made an emergency landing.
In reality, neither Babacan nor Davutoğlu completely severed ties with the AKP. Once it was more advantageous for Erdoğan to distance them, but now it is more beneficial to bring them closer.
The authorities are building a broad coalition to expand support groups in society. As we remember, the last parliamentary elections in Turkey in 2023 went very poorly for the ruling party. Turkish society is divided, and a part of it is extremely dissatisfied with the authorities due to both economic problems and pressure on the opposition.
A telling incident occurred when the Turkish Ministry of National Education sent instructions to schools to display not only the traditional Turkish flag and portrait of Atatürk but also an image of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for Republic Day. In one school, the portrait was hung only after the celebration when everyone had left, and in another, the lower part of the portrait hanging on the building was pulled into a neighboring window amid joyful shouts from the gathered crowd, making the image completely invisible.
In this context, articles that have reappeared in the Turkish press about a possible successor to Erdoğan are also interesting. Thus, Hürriyet’s editor-in-chief Ahmet Hakan published an article on December 16 naming four individuals as President Erdoğan’s “most valuable assets.“
The president’s son, Bilal Erdoğan, is actively involved in developing educational projects and working with youth and is not currently entering politics. Selçuk Bayraktar (the president’s son-in-law) is one of the central figures in the successes of the Turkish defense industry and the technological leap in recent years.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is presented as an experienced strategist who, after a long career in intelligence, continues to pursue a balanced and pragmatic foreign policy as head of the Foreign Ministry. And the new head of intelligence, İbrahim Kalın, combines, in the author’s opinion, an analytical approach and managerial experience.
The editor-in-chief of Hürriyet claims that all four are completely focused on their work, distinguished by a high degree of loyalty to the president, and largely compensate for the lack of trained personnel in the state apparatus.
However, the presence of several successors leads to behind-the-scenes struggles, also mentioned by the Turkish media. In December, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan became the target of media attacks. It is worth recalling that upon transitioning from intelligence to the Foreign Ministry, he was characterized by the British publication Middle East Eye as the “Master of the Game,” i.e., a person who will define the rules of the global political game. He is also known for his friendship with former British intelligence chief Richard Moore.
Fidan once initiated the transformation of Turkish intelligence (MİT), which rose to the international level under him. Today, his successor continues this transformation. Turkish researcher Dr. Merve Seren writes about the ongoing transformations in MİT, started by Fidan and continued by Kalın. The intelligence agencies are setting the task of their own technological equipment, including moving away from Western software. This has already borne fruit in signals intelligence, UAV, and cyber intelligence management.
MİT is also increasingly transforming from an information-gathering agency into an active agency. As Merve Seren notes, the department is already engaged in solving long-term strategic foreign policy issues, such as achieving strategic advantage in Libya, ensuring maritime security in Somalia, and energy security in the Eastern Mediterranean, etc.
Under Fidan, intelligence services penetrated various spheres of state activity and the economy and became much more powerful than before. A transformation of Turkey’s foreign policy apparatus under Fidan’s leadership has also begun, which he started turning into a structure similar to MİT.
Since Fidan’s figure is gaining increasing political weight, along with publications about his successes and importance to the Turkish president, “analysis” has appeared in the Turkish press claiming that he is losing influence and will soon be removed and replaced by Erdoğan’s son. Of course, such a thing is quite possible in Turkey; Ankara has observed such rises and falls more than once. However, it is difficult to believe that the authorities would abandon such a valuable asset. The lively discussion of such issues in the press shows that passions regarding Erdoğan’s successor are boiling intensely, and the issue arouses genuine interest.
Economy
While the former mayor of Istanbul is on trial, the Turkish stock market continues to fall, reacting negatively to all charges and protest actions. The new case against İmamoğlu was no exception. Immediately after the indictment was announced, the Istanbul Stock Exchange BIST 100 index fell by 3.5%.
On October 25, Bloomberg noted that judicial pressure on the opposition is causing sharp sell-offs of the Turkish lira in the stock market. When İmamoğlu was detained in March, the central bank spent $50 billion from reserves to stabilize the currency and then raised interest rates. On November 6, Sozcu wrote that since 2010, the lira has depreciated by 97%, the most significant drop in the last 15 years.
These are only “judicial costs” against the backdrop of a continuing difficult economic situation. According to Trading Economics data, Turkey has become the leader in Europe in food inflation. Food prices in November grew faster than in Ukraine, increasing by 27%. Since September 2021, the food price index in Turkey has risen by 583% and reached 683.7 points. Over the same period, the global index, on the contrary, fell by 2.1%—to 97.9 points. Thus, over the past four years, food in Turkey has become approximately 7 times more expensive than the global average.
In October 2025, the cost of living for a family of four in Turkey reached 104,927 liras. The number of citizens with individual credit debts in Turkey over the past year increased by 1.8 million, reaching 43 million.
Meanwhile, according to the newspaper Ekonomim in October 2025, out of 32.5 million working people in Turkey, about 16 million (almost half) receive the minimum wage, i.e., live on 22,104 liras. The minimum wage has remained below the official hunger threshold for 21 consecutive months. If in 2016, the net minimum wage covered 92% of the subsistence minimum, now it covers only 74%.
According to the trade union confederation TÜRK-İŞ, the hunger threshold in Turkey has approached 30,000 liras, and the poverty threshold—100,000 liras. This means a family of four needs to spend about 30,000 liras per month just on food to ensure a healthy diet. To cover other basic needs—housing, transportation, bills, and clothing—without falling into debt, such a family’s total income should be at least 100,000 liras.
In Turkey, the number of citizens unable to cope with debt loads from loans and credit cards is rapidly growing. In the first 10 months of 2025, the number of such people increased by 20%. The number of individuals with overdue debt exceeded 4.17 million.
In early December, municipal workers in Izmir are already preparing for hunger riots, and in Kahramanmaraş, police conducted drills to suppress strikes.
The economy also affects birth rates, which greatly concern the government. Erdoğan warned that the current low birth rate could turn into a catastrophe for the country in the future. On October 17, the Turkish portal T24 reported that the country intends to ban gender reassignment and same-sex marriages to protect the family institution and raise mentally healthy generations.
But it is unlikely that a ban on gender reassignment can correct the demographic situation. The state of healthcare also affects this indicator, and according to the OECD report “Health at a Glance 2025,” Turkey ranks last in areas such as healthcare spending, number of doctors and nurses, doctors’ salaries, and population smoking.
Military-Industrial Complex (MIC)
However, despite all economic difficulties, 2025 marked a major breakthrough for Turkey in the field of military exports.
On November 4, the French Ministry of Defense, in its 2025 report, noted the impressive growth in defense product exports that Turkey has demonstrated over the last 10 years. The document states that alongside leading arms exporters like the USA, Russia, and Germany, new players such as China, South Korea, and Turkey are beginning to play an increasingly active role in the market, rapidly developing their own defense technologies.
The report emphasizes that Turkey has demonstrated one of the most impressive leaps among the world’s ten largest arms exporters over the past decade and continues to invest significant funds in developing its defense industry.
According to a report presented to the Turkish parliament, Ankara increased arms exports by 80% in 2024, setting a new record. Turkey now lags behind only the USA, Russia, and Germany in arms export volumes. The growth is mainly due to UAV contracts.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) compiled a ranking of the world’s top 100 military-industrial complex companies by sales of weapons and military services in 2024. Five Turkish companies made the list. Turkey ranked 7th in terms of company revenue growth rates and 11th in terms of total company revenue. The total revenue of Turkish military companies increased by 11% compared to the previous year, reaching $10.1 billion.
A financial results report from the Turkish defense company Aselsan for the first 9 months of 2025 showed that the company’s revenue grew by 12.3%, reaching 90.9 billion Turkish liras. The company signed new contracts worth $5.7 billion, a 76% increase compared to the same period in 2024. Export contracts worth $1.45 billion were realized (a 171% increase).
Aselsan is Turkey’s leader in the number of research and development (R&D) projects being implemented. R&D expenses increased by 40%, reaching $925 million.
Turkey is now also investing in its air defense shield. The Defense Industry Agency signed several new contracts with national suppliers for the production of additional air defense systems totaling nearly $8 billion. On November 17, Haberler reported that the Turkish defense company MKE successfully conducted the first firings of the new Tolga close-in air defense system.
Turkey also announced its intention to develop FPV drones. The company Skydagger first demonstrated new FPV drone models at the BAMEX’25 exhibition in Mali. The Turkish company Uludoğan Savunma Sanayi Teknoloji AŞ developed and for the first time exported a nano unmanned helicopter, which will facilitate the work of security services in intelligence and information gathering.
Turkey also tested the TAYFUN hypersonic weapon system, which is extremely difficult to intercept. Now, for the TAYFUN ballistic missile with a range of over 2,000 kilometers, the entire territory of Greece—from Evros to Crete—has for the first time become within direct reach. Greek media called Ankara’s missile test an “open signal to Greece and Israel.“
“Turkey’s Century is when the concept of complete independence is realized at sea, in the air, and on land,” said the head of the Presidential Communications Directorate, Burak Duran. He explained: “Turkey is proud to be one of the 10 countries in the world that design and launch their own warships. Every ship and every platform launched today reflects our country’s engineering capabilities, innovative potential, and strategic determination.“
Speaking of dominance at sea, on land, and in the air, Turkey dreams of taking positions in space as well. Turkey’s first orbital vehicle, developed by Fergani Space Technologies, founded by Selçuk Bayraktar (Baykar), was launched into orbit on November 28 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and officially began its mission.
It is planned to put over 100 such devices into orbit within five years, providing independent navigation infrastructure. According to company head Selçuk Bayraktar, the future Uluğ Bey global positioning system should unite Turkey and friendly countries. The next stage after launching the satellite is creating an orbital tug and its own rocket. Fergani has already begun creating an orbital transport vehicle and its own rocket carrier. Their launch is planned for the near future.
On December 11, the head of the aircraft manufacturing company Baykar, Selçuk Bayraktar, announced at the Take Off forum in Istanbul that the Turkish government has begun constructing its own spaceport in Somalia.
In addition to a spaceport, Baykar, owned by Selçuk Bayraktar, has decided to aim for the construction of small modular reactors. According to Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar (Selçuk’s brother), the company is developing a small modular reactor with a capacity of 40 MW.
Despite serious economic problems, Turkey is actively and quite successfully developing its MIC, investing huge funds there, and this is already beginning to bear fruit. The growth in exports of military products shows that the chosen strategy was correct. In November, The EurAsian Times wrote that Turkey has become Pakistan’s second-largest arms supplier after China. The export of MIC products for the first 11 months of this year increased by 30% to a record $7.5 billion.
The Turkish defense company MKE delivered the domestically developed 76mm Denizhan-76 naval artillery system to Europe (Romania) for the first time. On December 15, in Ankara, the defense ministers of Turkey and Poland signed an intergovernmental “Agreement on Cooperation in the Defense Sphere.” The parties stated their intention to strengthen the security architecture of NATO and Europe. The Turkish defense company ASELSAN signed an export contract with Poland totaling $410 million for the supply of electronic warfare (EW) systems.
Europe, which believes that President Donald Trump’s America is turning away from it, is now betting on Turkey. Besides its own army and MIC, Turkey will now also arm and defend Europe. Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Alexander Grinkevich stated: “Turkey is an extremely important ally with extremely capable armed forces. Some of the best leaders serving in the alliance are from Turkey.”
For the sake of this cooperation, the EU is ready to forgive Ankara both the lack of democracy and the arrest of İmamoğlu, and much more. The honorary role of defender of Europe from Russia in NATO has long been ready to be entrusted to Turkey.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
