Italy and Turkey bolster ties with sights on European defense gaps, drone market

Erdoğan and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni in Rome Tuesday. © TCCB

ANKARA — Joined by a delegation of Turkey’s top officials, Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Rome today to strengthen bilateral cooperation with a focus on regional conflicts and European defense.

Officially titled the 4th Turkey-Italy Intergovernmental Summit, the event follows a series of high-profile defense agreements and meetings between Italian and Turkish figures.

Turkey’s drone maker Baykar acquired Italy’s Piaggio Aerospace late last year and, in March, announced a joint venture to produce unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with Italy’s largest defense firm, Leonardo.

The strategic partnerships are taking shape as European security faces ongoing threats from the Russia-Ukraine war amid high unpredictability in US foreign policy. Both dynamics have, in turn, boosted Turkey’s value among NATO allies in fortifying regional defense architecture.

The shift comes five years after Turkey was removed from the F-35 jet program for its purchase of Russian-made S-400 missiles. It also comes as the German government has reportedly blocked the export of Eurofighter jets to Ankara following the arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.

Yet, despite occasional friction between NATO members and Ankara, European analysts and officials at various levels have long pointed to Turkey as a nearby and capable partner for joint defense initiatives.

In that context, Italian and Turkish firms seek to cooperate directly and address immediate security needs, sidestepping the complexities and veto powers that can often slow accords in European Union frameworks.

“We are seeing a changing environment in which bilateral deals are taking over a multilateral decision-making process,” said Riccardo Gasco, foreign policy program coordinator at the IstanPol Institute and doctoral researcher at the University of Bologna.

“Why?” he continued. “Because they are faster, they are more reliable and they allow countries that have some sort of affinity, like Italy and Turkey, to directly engage and overcome the issues related to [EU bureaucracy].”

If initial agreements are finalized, Italy-Turkey defense cooperation aims to target the European UAV market, which is projected to reach $100 billion in the coming decade and remains up for grabs, defense experts told Turkey recap.