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Turkish Defence Factories Abroad: Where Türkiye Builds

Turkish defence companies now own or part-own industrial assets in Italy, Romania, the United States, Egypt, Estonia, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Qatar and the United Kingdom. Very few of them are factories that build Turkish weapons. The pattern that shows up in audited filings and signed contracts is narrower than the headlines suggest: where a Turkish firm manufactures inside a customer country, it usually holds a minority stake; where it owns outright, the plant is often making something else entirely. Ownership percentage, not the map pin, is what tells a buyer who actually controls the line.

DEFENCETÜRKIYE DATA BOX

Subject: Turkish defence industry’s manufacturing and corporate footprint outside Türkiye

Countries with Turkish-owned or Turkish part-owned industrial entities: Italy, Romania, United States, Egypt, Estonia, UAE, Kazakhstan, Jordan, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Indonesia

Largest single Turkish industrial acquisition abroad: Otokar–Automecanica Mediaș, Romania, 96.77% for about €85m, completed June 2026

Largest announced greenfield investment: ARCA Baltics Operations, Estonia, €300m, production from 2028

Typical ASELSAN stake in a foreign manufacturing joint venture: 48–49%

Turkish-owned foreign plants producing Turkish weapon systems today: one confirmed (Mediaș, Romania)

Status date: 24 September 2026

Three ways a Turkish company ends up with a plant abroad

The routes look similar in a press release and behave very differently in a contract. There are three of them, and they sit on a spectrum of control.

At one end, the Turkish firm transfers a design and the customer’s own industry builds it. Ankara keeps design authority and earns licence income; it owns no bricks. In the middle sits the joint venture, where a Turkish company takes equity in a local manufacturer — almost always a minority share, because Gulf and Central Asian host states require local majority ownership. At the far end is outright acquisition, where a Turkish company buys a foreign plant and runs it as a subsidiary.

ASELSAN’s foreign map is a sales map, not a factory map

The clearest evidence comes from the biggest Turkish defence company’s own accounts. ASELSAN publishes a full list of subsidiaries, joint ventures and branches in its consolidated financial statements, which its board approved on 28 April 2026. Read that list and a common assumption collapses.

ASELSAN’s wholly owned foreign subsidiaries are ASELSAN Baku in Azerbaijan, ASELSAN Malaysia, ASELSAN Ukraine, ASELSAN Latin America in Chile, ASELSAN Technologies in the UAE, ASELSAN Muscat in Oman and ASELSAN Philippines. The filing states the principal activity of each one. For Malaysia, Chile, the UAE, Oman and the Philippines it is “marketing and business development”. For Ukraine it is marketing, business development, maintenance and repair. Only Baku, established in 1998 and the company’s first foreign entity, adds sales and repair work to that list.

None of them manufactures. Seven further branch offices — in South Africa, North Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Qatar, Poland, Albania and Romania — are offices. A company with an average group headcount of 16,243 at the end of March 2026, up from 14,143 three months earlier, is adding almost all of that capacity at home.

Where ASELSAN does manufacture abroad, it holds a minority

The manufacturing sits in the joint-venture column, and the numbers there are consistent to the point of being a policy. IGG ASELSAN Integrated Systems in the UAE, which the filing describes as manufacturing, testing, maintenance-repair and marketing of remote-controlled weapon systems: ASELSAN holds 49%. Kazakhstan ASELSAN Engineering, covering manufacturing, development and maintenance-repair of electronic devices and systems: 49%. ASELSAN Middle East in Jordan, for night-vision and thermal imaging systems: 49%. BARQ in Qatar, covering command and control, thermal and night-vision cameras, crypto and remote-controlled weapon systems: 48%, with Qatar’s Barzan Holdings on the other side of the table.

Four manufacturing ventures on three different continents, and not one of them gives the Turkish partner control. That is not timidity. Gulf states and Kazakhstan generally require local majority ownership of defence entities, and ASELSAN has taken the deal on those terms rather than not taking it. For a procurement officer the consequence is practical: a system assembled in Abu Dhabi or Astana under one of these ventures is governed by a local majority shareholder, and questions about output, priority and onward export go to that shareholder as much as to Ankara.

The traffic also runs the other way, which is rarely acknowledged. Qatar’s armed forces industrial committee took a 49.9% holding in the investment vehicle controlling BMC in 2014, and Barzan holds the majority in BARQ. Envanter Medya’s Turkish-language analysis of the Qatar–Türkiye defence relationship, in which the customer is also a shareholder, tracks those cross-holdings in more detail than any English-language source.

The tier where Türkiye owns nothing at all

The largest volume of “Turkish” production outside Türkiye happens in plants no Turkish company owns. FNSS designed the vehicle that DEFTECH builds in Malaysia as the AV-8 Gempita; the prime contractor is Malaysian. PT Pindad builds the KAPLAN MT in Indonesia as the Harimau, with pre-delivery acceptance tests on the first KAPLAN APC completed in September 2026. Nurol Makina’s Ejder Yalçın is licensed to Hungary as the Gidrán, where an 800-vehicle local line was announced in March 2026 and no Hungarian-built vehicle has yet been confirmed.

Indonesia is the deepest version of this model, spanning land systems, UAVs, missiles and warships, and Envanter Medya has mapped the Indonesia–Türkiye industrial relationship layer by layer in Turkish. Baykar’s February 2025 joint venture with Republikorp for local TB3 and AKINCI work belongs in this tier too, for now: the ownership split has not been published and no operating plant has been confirmed. We have examined what buyers in this category actually receive in a separate analysis of Turkish defence offsets, and the armoured-vehicle version of the question in why countries buy Turkish armoured vehicles.

The plants Türkiye actually owns

Full ownership abroad is recent, and it is concentrated in five places.

Romania is the only confirmed case of a Turkish-owned foreign plant building a Turkish weapon system. Otokar signed an agreement on 29 April 2026 to acquire 96.77% of Automecanica Mediaș for about €85m and completed the purchase in June 2026 after regulatory approval. Of the 1,059 COBRA II vehicles Romania ordered in November 2024 under a contract worth roughly RON 4.263bn, 780 are to be built at Mediaș. Romania’s defence ministry accepted the first Romanian-built vehicles on 30 July 2026.

Egypt is a legal vehicle rather than a plant. MKE registered Zafer, a wholly owned Egyptian company, announced on 10 September 2026, to run joint production with Egyptian state factories under a $350m package agreed in February 2026. The manufacturing capacity is Egyptian; what MKE owns is the entity that contracts for it.

The United Kingdom is the newest entry and the smallest. Altınay Defense Technologies announced a wholly owned UK subsidiary, Altınay Aerospace Technologies International Ltd, on 22 September 2026, describing it as an export and cooperation bridge into Western markets. The company disclosed no investment figure, headcount or timeline, and said its engineering and production base stays in Türkiye. It is a corporate presence, not a factory.

Estonia is the largest greenfield commitment. ARCA Baltics Operations, the local arm of Turkish group ARCA Defense, will invest €300m in an ammunition plant at the North Kiviõli defence industry park, producing 155mm artillery ammunition including extended-range variants, mortar ammunition and 122mm rockets. Estonia’s Centre for Defence Investments announced the project on 21 April 2026: 141 hectares of state land, up to €10m of state money for roads, fencing and utilities, up to 1,000 jobs, and production from 2028. The Estonian state also secured an option to buy from the plant. Nothing is built yet.

Italy and the United States are where the story stops behaving as expected.

The two biggest Turkish-owned assets abroad do not build Turkish weapons

Baykar completed its acquisition of Piaggio Aerospace’s business units on 30 June 2025 and has run the company as Baykar Piaggio Aerospace S.p.A. since the following day. A year on, the company’s own account of the turnaround describes an Italian business aviation and engine firm, not a drone plant. It employed 677 people in April 2026 against a pledged retention floor of 675. It rebranded the P.180 Avanti as the Avanti NX in February 2026, renamed the special-missions variant Mantide, and set an ambition of 20 to 25 aircraft a year. Its engine division does maintenance for the Italian Air Force’s MB-339s and the Italian Army’s CH-47 and A129 fleets — and manufactures components for the F-35’s F135 engine.

That last detail deserves a moment. A Turkish company owns a plant that makes parts for the engine of the fighter Türkiye was removed from in 2019. Piaggio’s own statement frames its EASA-certified design, production and maintenance approvals as “a capability base for potential future manufacturing activities within the Baykar Group” — future, not current. Leonardo, meanwhile, states that under the 50-50 LBA Systems joint venture that reached full operational capability on 21 July 2026, work on the TB2 and AKINCI “will be performed at the Baykar’s plant in Italy”, while the Astore Levante and KIZILELMA types will be built at Leonardo’s own sites. Turkish drone production in Italy is allocated. It has not started.

The American case is stranger still. Repkon, a Turkish metal-forming specialist, won a $435m US Army contract in November 2024 to design, build and commission a TNT production facility at Graham, Kentucky — the first domestic TNT capacity the United States will have had in decades — and picked up a further $108.7m modification in May 2025. In March 2026 Repkon USA rebranded as Paligen Technologies. A Turkish-owned company is now building the explosive fill for American artillery shells under an American-sounding name, which is close to the inverse of the usual story about Turkish industrial expansion.

WHY IT MATTERS

Türkiye’s overseas industrial footprint is usually read as evidence that Turkish weapons are being built around the world. The documented record points somewhere else: the two most valuable Turkish-owned industrial assets abroad currently produce Italian business aircraft, Western engine components and American explosives.

For a buyer, that reframes what a Turkish “local production” offer is worth. Türkiye has proven it can transfer a design and stand up a line in someone else’s country. It has far less track record of owning and running a plant abroad, and the one case where it does — Romania — is four months old.

What has not worked

Two of the most publicised ventures are behind schedule or worse.

Baykar announced construction of a drone plant in Ukraine in 2023, with Ukrainian engines and local maintenance as part of the plan. Russian strikes hit the site repeatedly through 2025, and CEO Haluk Bayraktar told Ukrinform in October 2025 that the company would rebuild. No operational plant has been confirmed.

The American 155mm story is harder. A Department of Defense Inspector General report dated 10 July 2026 found that the General Dynamics-operated projectile metal parts facility at Mesquite, Texas — funded with close to $500m and built around production lines supplied by Repkon — had, as of March 2026, been unable to produce any projectile metal parts meeting contract specifications. Without the roughly 30,000 rounds a month Mesquite was meant to contribute, the Army cannot reach its 100,000-round monthly goal; output stood at about 36,000. The War Zone reported that the Repkon-supplied equipment is being replaced with hardware from another supplier. Repkon’s separate Kentucky TNT contract is unaffected and continues.

Neither failure is disqualifying. Both are the kind of detail a procurement office will find, and a buyer is better served hearing it here than discovering it in a due-diligence pack.

Turkish industrial footprint abroad, September 2026

Country	Turkish company	Entity	Turkish stake	What it does	Status, Sept 2026
Romania	Otokar	Automecanica Mediaș	96.77%	COBRA II production	Acquired June 2026; first local vehicles accepted 30 July 2026
Italy	Baykar	Baykar Piaggio Aerospace S.p.A.	100%	P.180 aircraft, engine components incl. F135, MRO	Operating; 677 staff April 2026; no drone production yet
Italy	Baykar / Leonardo	LBA Systems	50%	Unmanned systems for European customers	Full operational capability 21 July 2026; first Astore Levante batch in build
United States	Repkon	Repkon USA, rebranded Paligen Technologies	Wholly owned	TNT plant, Graham, Kentucky	$435m award Nov 2024, +$108.7m May 2025; under construction
Estonia	ARCA Defense	ARCA Baltics Operations OÜ	Local arm	155mm, mortar ammunition, 122mm rockets	€300m announced 21 April 2026; production from 2028
Egypt	MKE	Zafer	100%	Contracting vehicle for joint production in Egyptian plants	Announced 10 September 2026
United Kingdom	Altınay Defense	Altınay Aerospace Technologies International Ltd	100%	Market access to Western primes	Announced 22 September 2026; no figures disclosed
UAE	ASELSAN	IGG ASELSAN Integrated Systems	49%	Remote-controlled weapon systems	Active joint venture
Kazakhstan	ASELSAN	Kazakhstan ASELSAN Engineering	49%	Electronic devices and systems, MRO	Active joint venture
Jordan	ASELSAN	ASELSAN Middle East PSC	49%	Night vision and thermal imaging	Active joint venture
Qatar	ASELSAN	BARQ QSTP	48%	C2, EO/IR cameras, crypto, RCWS	Active joint venture; Barzan Holdings holds the majority
Ukraine	Baykar	Drone plant, Kyiv region	Turkish-funded	Planned production and maintenance	Repeatedly struck since 2025; not operational
Indonesia	Baykar	Joint venture with Republikorp	Not published	Planned TB3 and AKINCI work	Signed February 2025; no operating plant confirmed

Sources: ASELSAN consolidated financial statements for the three months ended 31 March 2026; Piaggio Aerospace; Leonardo; Estonian Centre for Defence Investments; Repkon USA / Paligen Technologies; Otokar and Romanian Ministry of National Defence; MKE. Table compiled by DefenceTürkiye. Licensed-production arrangements in which no Turkish company holds equity are excluded.

BUYER VIEW

Ask what percentage, not what country. A Turkish “facility” in the Gulf or Central Asia is most likely a 48–49% stake with a local majority partner. That is not a defect, but it determines who sets production priority.

Separate a legal entity from a production line. MKE’s Egyptian company and Altınay’s UK company are contracting vehicles. Neither is a factory, and neither firm has claimed otherwise.

Check whether the plant makes what you are buying. Baykar’s Italian plant is a real, operating industrial asset — of business aircraft and engine components. Drone work there is allocated by Leonardo’s joint-venture statement, not yet running.

Use Romania as the reference case. It is the only completed example of a Turkish company buying a foreign plant and delivering a Turkish vehicle from it, and it took a 1,059-unit order to justify an €85m acquisition. Smaller orders will not reproduce it. This is open-source editorial analysis, not procurement advice.

What comes next

Four things will settle whether this footprint becomes structural or stays opportunistic. Whether Baykar starts actual TB2 or AKINCI assembly at Villanova d’Albenga, as the LBA Systems arrangement provides for. Whether ARCA’s Estonian plant reaches its 2028 production date, which would give Türkiye a European ammunition position rather than a European sales office. Whether the Kentucky TNT facility delivers, after the Texas experience. And whether any second Otokar-style acquisition follows — the model works, but it needs an order the size of Romania’s to pay for itself.

There is a wider question underneath all of it, which we have examined in our assessment of how independent Turkish defence production really is: an industry that buys plants inside NATO’s supply chain is pursuing access, not autarky. The absence of US ITAR exposure in most Turkish products is the argument these firms take into Western boardrooms, and it is why a component house like Altınay opens in London rather than waiting for a prime to call Istanbul.

FAQ

Does Türkiye build weapons in other countries?

Yes, but mostly through other people’s factories. Turkish designs are built under licence in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hungary and Pakistan without any Turkish equity. Where Turkish companies do hold equity in a foreign manufacturer, it is usually a minority stake of 48–49%. The only confirmed plant that a Turkish company owns outright and that builds a Turkish weapon system is Otokar’s Automecanica facility at Mediaș, Romania.

Which Turkish defence company owns the most abroad?

Baykar, by asset value. It owns Piaggio Aerospace in Italy outright and holds 50% of LBA Systems with Leonardo. Otokar owns the largest foreign plant producing a Turkish system. ASELSAN has the widest geographic spread but holds no controlling foreign manufacturing stake.

Does ASELSAN have factories outside Türkiye?

Not under its own control. ASELSAN’s wholly owned foreign subsidiaries — in Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Ukraine, Chile, the UAE, Oman and the Philippines — are described in its own consolidated financial statements as marketing, business development, sales and repair operations. Its foreign manufacturing runs through minority joint ventures in the UAE, Kazakhstan, Jordan and Qatar.

Is a Turkish company really building an American TNT plant?

Yes. Repkon won a $435m US Army contract in November 2024 for a TNT production facility at Graham, Kentucky, with a $108.7m modification added in May 2025. Its US arm rebranded as Paligen Technologies in March 2026. It is a separate contract from the troubled Mesquite, Texas projectile-parts plant, which is operated by General Dynamics.

What happened at the Texas plant Repkon supplied?

A Department of Defense Inspector General report dated 10 July 2026 found that the facility, funded with close to $500m, had been unable as of March 2026 to produce any projectile metal parts meeting contract specifications. The War Zone reported the Repkon-supplied equipment is being replaced. The plant is operated by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems; Repkon was the equipment supplier.

Is Baykar making drones in Italy?

Not yet. Baykar Piaggio Aerospace currently produces the P.180 business aircraft and manufactures engine components, including parts for the F-35’s F135 engine. Leonardo’s July 2026 statement on the LBA Systems joint venture says TB2 and AKINCI work will be performed at Baykar’s Italian plant, but Piaggio’s own one-year review describes its certifications as a base for potential future Baykar Group manufacturing.

Why do Turkish firms take minority stakes in the Gulf?

Because host states generally require local majority ownership of defence entities. Taking 48–49% is the condition of entry rather than a choice, and it is the same constraint every foreign supplier in those markets faces.