Who Approves a Turkish Arms Export — and Who Can Stop It

A Turkish arms export is approved by the Ministry of National Defence, not by the Presidency of Defence Industries that foreign readers usually have in mind. Under Law No. 5201, anything on Türkiye’s Controlled List needs a permit before it leaves the country — even for a demonstration or a trade fair — and the ministry decides only after taking the opinions of the General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The buyer must supply an end-user certificate sealed by its own government. And one clause few foreign buyers have read lets the Turkish President stop a delivery after the contract is signed, with the Treasury compensating the seller.

That last sentence is the part worth sitting with. Turkish statute does not merely allow Ankara to refuse a licence at the application stage, which every exporting state does. It contemplates a signed, approved export being halted on the way out, and it writes down who gets paid when that happens. The exporter does. The customer is not mentioned.

What follows sets out what the Turkish system actually requires, article by article, from the statute itself and the 2026 Controlled List as published in the Official Gazette. It is written for the person on the other side of the table, trying to work out what political risk sits inside a Turkish contract and where in Ankara the decision really gets made.

One law, six articles that matter

Türkiye runs its military export control through a single short statute. Law No. 5201 — in English, the law on the supervision of industrial establishments producing war vehicles and equipment, weapons, ammunition and explosives — replaced a 1940 law and has been amended since, most importantly in 2018, when the move to the presidential system swapped “Council of Ministers” for “President” throughout Turkish legislation.

It is short: twelve articles plus transitional provisions covering who may build this material, what they must report, what may leave the country and what happens when it may not. For a buyer, six of them carry the weight.

The ministry that signs is not the agency you have heard of

Most English-language coverage of Turkish defence exports runs through the Presidency of Defence Industries, the SSB, and its president Haluk Görgün. That is where the programme announcements, the localisation statistics and the annual export totals come from, and it is the body foreign delegations meet. It is not the body that issues the export permit.

Law 5201 names the Ministry of National Defence, and nobody else, as the authority that grants permission to produce and to export. The SSB’s role is upstream: it runs procurement programmes, manages industrial participation and promotes the sector abroad. What the SSB actually does and what the defence ministry signs are two different questions, and conflating them produces a common planning error — a buyer who has secured enthusiastic SSB backing for a project has not thereby secured an export licence.

The distinction also cuts across the different routes a government can use to buy — direct commercial contract, intergovernmental agreement or state-to-state arrangement — which are set out in our guide to how countries actually buy Turkish weapons. Whichever route is chosen, the Article 7 permit sits underneath it.

A third authority appears for dual-use goods. Items that are not on the military Controlled List but have civil and military applications run through the Ministry of Trade under its own communiqué regime, and the 2026 list requires firms to state on the customs declaration whether goods are military or civilian. Where the classification is disputed, the list says the defence ministry’s decision settles it.

What the buyer has to put on the table

The permission requirement is broad. An export licence is needed regardless of why the material is leaving — a test, a demonstration, a briefing, an analysis or an exhibition stand all count. That is why Turkish systems appearing at an overseas trade fair have already been through a licensing decision, a point that is easy to miss when a prototype shows up at IDEX or DSEI.

The application the Turkish company files is built mostly out of documents the customer provides:

• the destination country;
• information identifying the customer requesting the material;
• the agreement signed with that customer;
• an undertaking by the customer not to use the material for unsuitable purposes; and
• an end-user certificate signed and sealed by the corresponding authority in the customer’s own country.

Two of those five are worth dwelling on. The signed agreement has to exist before the licence application is made, which means a buyer commits contractually before Ankara has formally ruled on the export. And the end-user certificate has to come from a government authority, not from the purchasing entity — a state-owned trading company or a private integrator cannot self-certify its way through this.

Turkish companies then carry continuing duties. They must report export information to the ministry every three months, and notify any change in the elements identified in the licence within one month. For a buyer, the practical consequence is that a change of end user, configuration or destination inside a live contract is a reportable event in Ankara, not a commercial matter between the parties.

The clock, and the rule that silence means yes

Article 5 contains a provision that has no obvious parallel in the Western systems buyers usually compare Türkiye with. When a Turkish company receives an order that falls outside national defence requirements — which is to say, an export order — the ministry has to decide whether the order may be accepted, weighing it against national security, the national economy and public benefit, after consulting the General Staff, the Foreign Ministry and any other ministry it needs. It must tell the company within one month at the latest.

And then the statute says that if no notification is made, the order request is deemed accepted.

Read carefully, this is a silence-is-consent rule attached to the order-acceptance stage, not to the export permit under Article 7. It does not mean a licence appears automatically after thirty days of quiet. It does mean the first gate in the Turkish system is designed to fail open rather than closed, which tells you something about the drafters’ intent: the default posture of the law is that Turkish industry should be allowed to take the business unless someone in Ankara has a reason to say otherwise.

That is a genuinely different design philosophy from a licensing regime built around prior affirmative approval at every step, and it is part of why Turkish suppliers can move from first contact to signature faster than many competitors. It is also, for the same reason, a system with fewer published checkpoints for an outsider to observe.

What is on the list, and what the 2026 edition added

The Controlled List decides whether a licence is needed at all, and it is the part of the system that moves. The current edition, the 2026 Controlled Materials List, was published in the Official Gazette on 30 June 2026 under issue No. 33296. It runs to eleven lettered categories plus interpretive notes, covering firearms; tactical vehicles; ammunition, explosives and pyrotechnics; rockets, missiles and torpedoes; CBRN defence; military aircraft; surface warships and submarines; military command, control, communications and information systems; military space systems; reconnaissance, surveillance, geolocation and navigation sensors; and a residual category for everything else military.

Three details show where Turkish control is tightening. Category g.7 covers military and national-security software and code, with the notes excluding civilian software and commercially available hardware. The residual category reaches stealth technologies and graphene materials and their production equipment, both where the use is military. And the list cross-references the MTCR annex and specific Wassenaar Munitions List entries rather than adopting an ML numbering scheme of its own, which is why a Turkish licence officer and a European one can look at the same item under two different reference numbers.

The transitional provision is the detail with a live deadline attached. Manufacturers of items newly brought onto the list must apply for the required certifications — personnel security, facility security, company permit and production permit — within two months of publication, and complete the process by 1 June 2027, continuing existing production until then. Firms that do not certify must sell existing stock by the same date. Turkish reporting at the time noted that drone parts and military software were among the categories pulled in.

Two structural points follow. The list is less reliably annual than Article 4 implies — the 2026 edition’s transitional article is written against the 2023 list, and Article 4 provides that where no new list is published, the last one stands. And a supplier two or three tiers down a Turkish chain can land inside the regime because a category widened, not because its product changed. On a programme with a delivery schedule, a 2027 certification deadline sitting on a subcontractor is a real variable.

The catch-all nobody expects: human rights, written into the statute

Article 7 does not stop at the list. Its third paragraph brings material and technology that is not on any annual list under the defence ministry’s permission requirement in three situations: where there is suspicion, communicated or otherwise held, that the goods relate to weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems and are heading to an end user on that basis; where the exporting company itself declares a suspicion that all or part of the material could be used in developing such weapons; and — the clause that surprises most readers — in situations where national and international security could be endangered and which could lead to violations of human rights.

A human-rights trigger written directly into a national arms-export statute is not unusual among European exporters; it is the standard language of the EU’s eight criteria. It is unusual to find it in Turkish law and almost never mentioned in English-language commentary on Turkish arms sales, which tends to treat Ankara as operating without such a test. The test exists. What does not exist is any published record of it being applied, which is a different problem and one this page returns to below.

What can stop a delivery after the contract is signed

Here is the provision in full effect. Article 7’s second paragraph covers two situations: goods for which an export connection was made without a permit because they were not on the annual list, and goods for which the relevant authorities did grant permission to accept the foreign order. In either case, if delivery to the customer is subsequently prevented because of conditions determined later, the loss and damage the seller is exposed to is paid to the company by the Treasury upon a decision of the President.

Until the 2018 constitutional amendments this power sat with the Council of Ministers; Decree-Law No. 700 of 2 July 2018 replaced that phrase with “the President” throughout. The practical reading is unchanged in substance and sharper in form: a single office can now make the decision.

Three observations follow, and they are the reason this clause deserves to be known outside Türkiye.

First, the statute anticipates its own interventions. A law that sets up compensation for blocked deliveries was drafted by people who expected deliveries to be blocked. That is not a criticism of Türkiye — the same expectation sits behind every major exporter’s regime, as the restrictions placed on Türkiye itself demonstrate. It is a fact a buyer should price.

Second, the remedy runs to the seller. The Treasury makes the Turkish company whole. Nothing in Law 5201 gives the foreign customer a claim, a notice period or a right to be heard. Whatever protection a buyer has against a blocked delivery has to be built into the commercial contract — liquidated damages, milestone-linked payment, escrow, a transfer of rights on default — because the Turkish statute does not supply it.

Third, the trigger is open-textured. “Conditions determined later” is not defined, bounded by criteria or tied to a published procedure. It could cover a change in the destination country’s conduct, a shift in Turkish foreign policy, a sanctions listing or a bilateral quarrel. The breadth is the point.

Where Türkiye sits in the international system

Türkiye is inside most of the multilateral export-control architecture and outside one piece of it. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Türkiye has been a founding member of the Wassenaar Arrangement since 1996, joined the Missile Technology Control Regime in 1997, the Zangger Committee in 1999, and both the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Australia Group in 2000. The ministry says Türkiye “regularly submits compliance reports in order to enhance transparency and confidence building.”

The gap is the Arms Trade Treaty. Türkiye signed in July 2013 and has not ratified; the foreign ministry’s own page says the national ratification procedure “is ongoing”, a formulation that has now stood for more than a decade. For a buyer this matters less than campaigners sometimes suggest and more than Turkish officials sometimes concede. Non-ratification does not leave Türkiye without export criteria — Article 7’s catch-all contains a human-rights test, and Wassenaar membership carries reporting obligations. What it removes is an external treaty standard against which Turkish decisions could be measured, and a treaty reporting channel through which they would be visible.

What Ankara does not publish

The honest summary of Turkish export-control transparency is that the rules are public and the decisions are not. The statute sits on the government’s legislation portal; the Controlled List is in the Official Gazette, free to read, item by item. What is missing is everything downstream of those documents.

There is no Turkish equivalent of the EU annual report or the State Department’s country-by-country return: no published figure for licences issued or refused, no destinations behind either, no case register showing whether the Article 7 human-rights trigger has ever been used. Nor is there any public record of a presidential decision halting a delivery, which means the compensation mechanism above has never been observed in operation — though an absent record is not evidence of an unused power.

This dovetails with a pattern this site has documented before. Turkish companies disclose contract values to the capital-markets regulator but routinely do not name the customer, for reasons that are partly legal and partly contractual. Otokar’s announcement on 1 October 2026 of a wheeled-armoured-vehicle export contract worth about $1.47 billion, with deliveries starting in 2027, named no buyer; Envanter Medya’s Turkish-language write-up of the $1.47 billion Otokar armoured vehicle export records the same gap. An analyst therefore has two blind spots stacked on top of each other: the company will not say who bought it, and the state will not say what it approved.

The limitations of this picture, stated plainly

Several things in this account are firmer than others, and the difference matters.

The statute is solid ground: every provision above is in the consolidated text of Law No. 5201 as published by the Turkish government, and the 2026 list is quoted from the Official Gazette. The implementing regulation issued under Article 9 adds procedural detail not reproduced here, and anyone working a live transaction should read it rather than a summary.

The procedural specifics — the five documents, the one-month response, the three-monthly reporting — come from a published Turkish legal memorandum on Laws 5201 and 5202. They are consistent with the statute, but they describe practice rather than quote the regulation, and the memorandum dates from 2020. Treat them as a guide to the shape of the process and verify any specific deadline.

No documented case of the Article 7 compensation mechanism being triggered has been found. Türkiye’s 2024 suspension of trade with Israel, announced by the Ministry of Trade, operated through trade measures rather than a publicly identified Law 5201 revocation, and Ankara has separately denied conducting military trade with Israel. It is not a clean example of the clause in this article, and it is not presented as one.

Finally, this page describes Türkiye’s control over its own exports. It says nothing about the separate and well-documented question of foreign control over Turkish products through components — the subject of how US export rules reach into the Turkish portfolio and of how independent Turkish production actually is. A buyer facing a delivery risk needs both halves. Envanter Medya’s report on the US export licence Turkish Aerospace secured for the KAAN’s F110 engines is a useful illustration of the mirror image: Türkiye on the receiving end of someone else’s licensing decision.

What comes next

The nearest fixed date is the 1 June 2027 certification deadline in the 2026 Controlled List, which will show how many firms the widened software, drone-component and advanced-materials categories pulled in. The next edition of the list is the second thing to watch: Article 4 allows publication in January or during the year, and recent editions suggest the interval follows policy need rather than the calendar.

The third is ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty, pending since 2013 with no sign of movement. Türkiye’s volumes have grown enough, and its European customer base with them, as the question of where Türkiye actually ranks as an exporter shows, that the transparency gap is now commercial and not only diplomatic. If Ankara ever publishes an annual export-control report, the ATT template is the obvious format to borrow.

FAQ

Who issues arms export licences in Türkiye?

The Ministry of National Defence, under Law No. 5201, after taking the opinions of the General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) runs procurement programmes and promotes exports but does not issue the permit.

Does Türkiye need an export licence to show a weapon at an arms fair?

Yes. The requirement applies regardless of purpose, including testing, demonstration, briefing, analysis and exhibition. A Turkish system on an overseas stand has already been through a licensing decision.

What documents does a foreign buyer have to provide?

The Turkish exporter’s application includes the destination country, information identifying the customer, the signed agreement, an undertaking by the customer not to use the material for unsuitable purposes, and an end-user certificate signed and sealed by the competent authority in the buyer’s own country.

Can Türkiye cancel an arms export after the contract is signed?

Turkish law provides for it. Under Article 7 of Law 5201, where delivery to the customer is later prevented, the seller’s loss is paid by the Treasury on a decision of the President. The remedy named in the statute runs to the Turkish company, not to the foreign buyer.

Has Türkiye ever blocked a defence delivery under that clause?

No publicly documented case has been identified. Türkiye does not publish licence refusals or revocations, so the absence of a record is not proof that the power has never been used.

Is Türkiye a party to the Arms Trade Treaty?

No. Türkiye signed the treaty in July 2013 but has not ratified it. The Foreign Ministry describes the national ratification procedure as ongoing. Türkiye is, however, a member of the Wassenaar Arrangement, the MTCR, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group and the Zangger Committee.

Does Türkiye publish how many arms export licences it issues?

No. The legislation and the annual Controlled List are public, but there is no published figure for licences issued or refused, and no destination-by-destination report comparable to the EU annual report or the United States’ annual report to Congress.

What is the Controlled List and when was it last updated?

It is the annual list of war materiel, weapons, ammunition, spare parts, military explosives and related technologies that require a permit. The current edition was published in the Official Gazette on 30 June 2026 under issue No. 33296, with a transitional compliance deadline of 1 June 2027 for newly listed items.

Sources

• Law No. 5201 of 29 June 2004, consolidated text, Republic of Türkiye legislation portal (Official Gazette, 3 July 2004, No. 25511)
• 2026 Controlled Materials List, Ministry of National Defence, Official Gazette, 30 June 2026, No. 33296
• Arms Control and Disarmament, Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Memorandum on Law No. 5201 and Law No. 5202, Duman Law (2020)
• EU annual report on arms exports, per-destination addendum, Council of the European Union