Turkish, Egyptian firms team up on unmanned ground vehicle project

The Turkish firm Havelsan makes small, armed land robots, on display at IDEX 2023. (Lee Ferran / Breaking Defense)

BEIRUT — Turkish defense firm Havelsan joined forces with Egypt’s Kader Factory for Developed Industries to produce unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) in Egypt, Havelsan said in a statement Wednesday, in what analysts said was a sign of deepening ties between Ankara and Cairo

Kader Factory, which is affiliated with the government-owned Arab Organization for Industrialization, will benefit from Turkish engineering expertise and licensing to jointly produce the UGVs in its facilities in Cairo, according to Havelsan.

“This cooperation represents not only a transfer of technology but also a sharing of expertise and strategic vision. We are proud to be co-producing advanced unmanned ground vehicles with our Egyptian partners. This partnership marks a significant step forward in strengthening the defense capabilities of both nations,” said Havelsan’s deputy general Şevket Ünal in the statement.

Turkish ambassador to Turkey Salih Mutlu Şen added in the statement that “this cooperation is the first step toward a long-term strategic partnership between HAVELSAN and Kader.”

An official from Haveslan told Breaking Defense that the UGVs to be developed in Egypt will not be a copy of Havelsan’s Barkan UGV.

“It will be a specific design for that region [Egypt]. We will reflect our autonomous capabilities. They [Kader Factory] will also make a specific design for the conditions in the Middle East,” the Haveslan official added.

He expected the first UGV prototype to be ready for Egypt’s defense expo, EDEX, taking place in September 2025. Development of the prototype is set to begin in two weeks, according to the official.

Unmanned ground vehicles are still a relatively new technology in the Middle East, and senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the RANE network Ryan Bohl highlighted that this cooperation will boost Egypt’s military diversification efforts.

“It gives Cairo another NATO partner to develop a system that is becoming increasingly attractive for actors wanting to limit casualties while maintaining the realistic threat of intervention,” Bohl told Breaking Defense. “But time will tell if Egypt can produce versions of UGVs that are scalable for strategic deployments, and there remains an open question as to whether or not Egypt can source the necessary components affordably to do so as it continues to restructure its fiscal position.”

Along with Bohl, Ali Bakir, a professor at Qatar University and non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, agreed that this partnership is part of the larger deepening ties between the two countries. In March 2023, Turkey and Egypt agreed to normalize ties a decade after the 2013 rupture following a coup in Cairo removed the Turkey-supported Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi.

“I think this signals that the Turkish/Egyptian relationship is progressing in the right direction, not only on the political and economic realms, but also on the defense and security cooperation, which is of highest importance for both countries,” Bakir told Breaking Defense.

Bohl added that this is a “notable sign that Egyptian-Turkish cooperation is deepening on the backdrop of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s sustained push for rapprochement with Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It’s a sign that Sisi too sees defense diversification through Turkey as a necessary back-up to U.S. ties, especially as the U.S. is pressuring Egypt to take in Gazan refugees and has long had lingering concerns about Cairo’s human rights record and connections to Russia.”

Bakir noted that the Turkish business industry is looking for new markets in the region and beyond as part of an expansion goal to focus on newly untapped markets.

“The first target was, of course, the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, [second] is the North Africa and African countries, and [Turkey has] achieved a lot of progress in this [area], and the third target is South-East Asian countries and East Asian countries where [Ankara] can see new opportunities with [countries like] Indonesia, Malaysia, and maybe Pakistan,” Bakir concluded.