Turkey Books $3 billion in Pakistani Defence Deals Plus

Since 2016, Turkey has booked nearly $3 billion US in big-ticket defence sales to Pakistan, with sold items ranging from 30 Turkish Aerospace T129 ATAK attack helicopters, four MILGEM Ada corvettes, a mid-life subsystems upgrade for Pakistan’s three Agosta 90B submarines to spate of smaller projects.[1][2][3] Through these programs, Turkey has cemented its position as one of Pakistan’s leading arms suppliers, second only to China and, in turn, effectively coming ahead of the US and Western Europe.

However, could Pakistan’s trust in the Turkish defence industry (quantifiable in $3 billion US worth of big-ticket expenditure) extend to more than just off-the-shelf procurement? With China, not only has Pakistan been able to secure capable big-ticket systems – such as the Type 054A frigate and Hangor (II) submarine – but it is able to develop strategically valuable conventional and deterrence capabilities.

Be it the Hangor (II) submarine, instrumented weapons test range or space satellite procurement, China is evidently equipping Pakistan to both develop and deploy land-attack cruise missiles (LACM). There is no scope for such access in the US or Western Europe. Rather, the US both rejects and, in fact, works to obstruct Pakistan’s efforts in strategically sensitive domains through sanctions and embargoes.[4]

Thus, it would be erroneous to expect Turkish-Pakistani defence ties to match in equivalence to those of China and Pakistan. However, there are more to Pakistan’s defence needs to simply strategically valuable capabilities, such as a myriad of tactical scenarios, such anti-submarine warfare (ASW) or close air support (CAS), where high-quality weapon systems could be sought.