BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) Turkish and Serbian leaders suggested Friday that their countries could jointly produce military drones, months after a Turkish delivery of unmanned aircraft to Serbia's neighbor Kosovo sparked anger in the Serbian capital.
While Serbia had initially planned to purchase Bayraktar military drones from Turkey, it announced in 2023 that it had abandoned this project in response to Turkey's delivery of drones to Kosovo, a former Serbian province which declared its independence in 2006 which Serbia does not recognize.
Kosovo's leaders said the five Turkish drones would boost their ability to defend against a possible Serbian attack. In 1998-1999, Serbia violently suppressed Kosovo Albanian separatists, triggering a 78-day NATO air war to end the bloodshed.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said last year that the delivery of drones to Kosovo was neither easy nor good news for us and would affect our relations with Turkey. He said Serbia would look to buy drones elsewhere.
However, the Serbian populist leader appeared to have changed his mind on Friday when he received Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Belgrade.
Turkey's military industry is significantly stronger than ours, Vucic said at a joint press conference with Erdogan. But without false modesty, we must not be neglected either. In these frameworks, I see room for great cooperation.
He said we are not interested in wars, but we must have enough power to deter anyone. »
When asked if joint cooperation between the military industry would include the production of Bayraktar drones, Erdogan replied: Serbia has certain capabilities, we have certain capabilities and as friendly countries we can develop our capabilities together.
There are people in the world who will look favorably on our cooperation and others who will not, that is natural, but since we are leaders, we must make these decisions sovereignly with our associates, he said. he declared.
During his visit to friendly Albania on Thursday, Erdogan said he would donate an unspecified number of Bayraktars to the Balkan country so that no one would dare attack it.
Another Serbian neighbor, Bosnia, has expressed interest in purchasing drones of the same type and NATO member Romania has already integrated Bayraktar TB2 drones into its military inventory.
Serbia has recently reinforced its armed forces with sophisticated equipment, notably with an order placed this summer for 12 French-made Rafale fighter jets for $3 billion.
The sale of Rafale to Russian ally Serbia, which has at times expressed an aggressive stance towards its Balkan neighbors, has raised some concerns, including over how France plans to prevent the sharing of sophisticated Rafale technology with Russia.
Most of Serbia's neighbors are members of NATO and the European Union. Vucic says Serbia will never join NATO because of its aggression against Kosovo.
Serbia is officially seeking EU membership, but under Vucic's increasingly autocratic rule it has made little progress in the areas of rule of law and democratic reforms, which are the main prerequisites for membership in the bloc of 27 countries.
