Because Turkey fears the US in its military contract with South Korea
Turkey fears that the United States could block the acquisition of tank engines from South Korea. The article by Giuseppe Gagliano
Turkey fears US intervention to stop the acquisition of South Korean engines for its Altay tank.
While discussions between Ankara and Seoul over the propulsion package borrowed from the K2 Black Panther tank to equip the Turkish Altay heavy tank have progressed over the past few weeks, they have also taken a different direction from that initially envisaged by Turkish officials.
In fact, where the latter initially envisaged a co-production with technology transfer for the 250 Doosan engines and the S&T Dynamics distribution that must equip the Altay tanks, it seems that from now on they are satisfied with an "off-shelf" acquisition. of the power pack according to the Turkish authorities.
Obviously, in such an approach, it seems unlikely that one would consider a notion of technology transfer, which would leave Ankara with no further benefit to develop its local solution for the second tranche of armored vehicles.
But now the Turkish authorities seem more concerned about a possible American intervention with Seoul to block the operation, rather than about the future of this technology transfer.
Indeed, after the United States Congress announced that it would be mostly hostile to the sale of 40 F-16s and 80 modernization kits to bring Turkish aviation planes to Block 70/72 standard, it appears Ankara is anticipating diplomatic action to derail bilateral discussions with Seoul.
Under these conditions, the Altay program, which has been closed since 2019 and the Turkish intervention in northern Syria which led to a European, and more notably German, embargo on land weapons in Ankara, will likely remain blocked for several months or even years, even though BMC, the industrialist responsible for the contract, has encountered significant financial difficulties in recent months.
The US Congress has been particularly critical of the positions taken by Turkey and its President Erdogan.
Such an American intervention is unlikely to come to light, as it seems inappropriate for the Turkish authorities to report the possible failure of these negotiations. One thing is certain: if Ankara finds itself deprived of a solution for its Altay tank and the renewal and modernization of its F-16 fleet, it is highly likely that President Erdogan will turn to Russia or China.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/turchia-corea-del-sud-motori-carri-armati/ on Sat, 13 Nov 2021 06:54:37 +0000.