Poland’s President Tours Turkish Stands as SSB Chief Holds UK and Spain Talks at MSPO 2026

Poland’s president spent part of his second day at MSPO 2026 walking the Turkish section of the exhibition floor, stopping at the stands of the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) and ASELSAN. The visit, on 8 September in Kielce, came as Türkiye’s defence industry chief held a separate run of bilateral meetings with UK, Polish and Spanish officials elsewhere at the same fair — a day that said more about where Turkish-Polish defence ties are headed than any single item on display.

President Karol Nawrocki was accompanied around the SSB and ASELSAN stands by SSB Chairman Haluk Görgün, who briefed him on Turkish defence industry capacity and the state of cooperation between the two countries. ASELSAN General Manager Ahmet Akyol, who hosted the stop, said on social media that the company had briefed the president on “the current status of our ongoing projects and the new technologies we have developed” — a reference, Akyol noted, to Nawrocki’s earlier visit to ASELSAN’s Gölbaşı Technology Base in Ankara during his state visit to Türkiye.

A relationship built on hardware, not just handshakes

The MSPO stop was largely symbolic, but it sits on top of a genuinely substantial commercial relationship. ASELSAN and Poland’s AMZ Kutno signed a follow-on contract at this same MSPO for 24 additional ARSUS reconnaissance and surveillance systems, to be integrated onto Polish-built LOTR Kleszcz armoured reconnaissance vehicles, with deliveries running through 2028-2029. That deal builds on a framework agreement the two companies signed in 2024.

It also follows ASELSAN’s largest Polish contract to date: an electronic-warfare export agreement signed in December 2025, worth roughly $410 million at signing and later put at closer to $530 million with deliveries running out to 2035. ASELSAN has since opened a local office in Poland and says it now works with more than 20 Polish suppliers — the kind of embedded industrial footprint that tends to precede, rather than follow, a head-of-state stand visit.

Görgün framed the visit in those terms. “Building on the historical foundation created by our centuries-old relations and the strong framework provided by our NATO alliance, we will continue to advance our engagement through concrete projects,” he said, according to Anadolu Agency’s report on the visit.

Görgün’s other meetings: UK, Poland and Spain in one day

Away from the stand tour, Görgün used MSPO 2026 to hold separate talks with UK Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard, Polish Deputy Minister of State Assets Konrad Golota, Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, and Spain’s National Armaments Director, Lieutenant General Miguel Ivorra Ruiz.

The UK meeting was the most novel of the four. Turkish and British officials discussed where Turkish firms might plug into the UK’s own defence procurement and industrial base, alongside joint technology development — a market Turkish companies have historically had limited access to compared with NATO’s continental European members. With Golota and Kosiniak-Kamysz, the discussion centred on joint production, technology transfer and localisation models the two countries’ industries could pursue together, building on the ARSUS and electronic-warfare precedents. The Spain meeting covered existing joint projects and procurement topics between the two countries, a relationship already anchored by Turkish Aerospace’s roughly €2.6 billion HÜRJET trainer contract with Madrid.

“We will continue our contacts to bring our mutual capabilities together in long-term industrial partnerships and new projects,” Görgün said, summarising the day’s meetings.

None of the four meetings produced a signed agreement on the day, and Turkish officials were careful to describe them as continuing discussions rather than finished deals — a distinction worth preserving, since MSPO conversations do not always turn into contracts on the timelines companies hope for.

Why it matters beyond the photo opportunity

For an international audience, the more interesting fact here isn’t that a foreign president toured a trade-fair stand — that happens at every major defence exhibition. It’s the pattern underneath it: a NATO member’s head of state making a second stop at a Turkish stand within months, on the back of two real contracts rather than one, while Türkiye’s SSB simultaneously works a UK channel that has been comparatively closed to Turkish suppliers. Poland has become something close to a template for how Ankara wants its defence-export relationships with fellow NATO and EU states to evolve: framework agreement, then a flagship contract, then follow-on orders, then local supplier networks, then head-of-state visibility.

Whether the UK and Spanish conversations follow the same arc remains to be seen. Türkiye’s defence and aerospace exports reached $511 million in August 2026 alone, and a growing share of that total is now coming from NATO members rather than the Gulf, African and Southeast Asian buyers who have historically dominated Turkish export figures — a shift reflected across a widening list of NATO operators of Turkish equipment.

Background

ASELSAN, Türkiye’s largest defence electronics manufacturer, has built its Polish business around electronic warfare and, now, reconnaissance and surveillance systems; a fuller look at the company’s portfolio is available in our ASELSAN company profile. ASELSAN’s counter-drone and electronic-warfare lineup on display at this year’s MSPO is covered separately in our report on the company’s MSPO 2026 stand.

Sources: Anadolu Agency; statements from Türkiye’s Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) and ASELSAN General Manager Ahmet Akyol.