“We are making plans to increase our stockpile of medium and long-range missiles. In a short time, we will reach a level of defence capability where no one will dare to coerce us.”
At the SAHA 2026 defence exhibition, Turkey unveiled the Yıldırım Khan intercontinental ballistic missile, reportedly capable of travelling up to 6,000 kilometres at speeds reaching Mach 25. The announcement represented the most ambitious expression yet of Ankara’s growing missile industry.
For decades after the Second World War, Turkey relied on Western security guarantees and NATO’s missile umbrella. Today, however, Ankara believes its regional environment requires an independent and sophisticated deterrent capability.
As Erdogan continues to speak of the “Turkish Century” and his vision of making Turkey one of the world’s ten leading political, economic and technological powers, Ankara is moving to translate that vision into reality. Its goal is to build military capabilities capable of protecting Turkish influence across a strategic belt stretching from Central Asia and the Caucasus to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, while safeguarding its territory and national security.
Recent conflicts have reinforced this thinking. The Russia-Ukraine war, as well as the war involving the United States, Israel and Iran, has highlighted the growing importance of long-range missiles, drones and multi-domain warfare in shaping the balance of power.
The Limits of Western Protection
Turkey’s missile ambitions did not emerge overnight.
During the Cold War, Ankara made no serious effort to develop an indigenous missile programme despite sharing a frontier with the Soviet Union. After joining NATO in 1952, Turkey relied heavily on the alliance’s collective deterrence and the American nuclear umbrella.
This arrangement was symbolised by the deployment of US Jupiter medium range ballistic missiles on Turkish soil, missiles that later became central to the secret negotiations that resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
However, a series of political shocks gradually altered Ankara’s outlook.
The first came in 1964, when US President Lyndon Johnson warned Turkey over Cyprus, implying Washington might not support Ankara if its intervention led to a confrontation with the Soviet Union.
A decade later, the United States imposed a military embargo on Turkey following its intervention in Cyprus in 1974. The embargo lasted three years and deepened Turkish doubts about relying entirely on American security guarantees.
During the 1980s, Ankara launched a defence industrialisation programme and established several institutions that would later become the backbone of Turkey’s military industry.
The Iran-Iraq war reinforced this direction. Iraq’s use of Scud missiles against Iranian cities, coupled with disagreements within NATO over missile defence deployments in Turkey, heightened Ankara’s concerns. Turkish policymakers increasingly feared falling behind neighbouring countries such as Iraq, Syria and Iran, all of which possessed larger missile arsenals.
After the Cold War, these concerns intensified.
The collapse of the Soviet threat did not bring stability. Instead, Turkey found itself surrounded by crises, including the Balkan wars, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the consequences of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent US invasion of Iraq, as well as rising tensions with Greece and Cyprus and the growing threat posed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
By the 1990s, the Turkish military had begun pursuing a dual strategy.
The first track focused on building a domestic missile industry.
The second sought to address immediate operational needs through the import of short range ballistic missiles with ranges between 150 and 300 kilometres, providing Turkey with an offensive capability that could impose costs on adversaries if it came under missile attack.
In this context, Turkey’s purchase of 72 American ATACMS missiles in 1996 marked an important step.
The missiles, with a range of 165 kilometres, became part of Turkey’s emerging deterrence doctrine. Their value became particularly evident during the 1998 crisis with Syria, when Ankara deployed them near the border to pressure Damascus into expelling PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.
The episode reinforced the belief within Turkish military circles that missiles could serve as effective instruments of coercion and strategic pressure.
The Rise of Roketsan
Licensed production of short range ballistic missiles became a central part of Turkey’s efforts to build an indigenous missile industry.
Ankara sought technical support from foreign suppliers while gradually developing domestic capabilities in design, manufacturing, guidance systems, propulsion, electronics and operational integration.
Over time, missiles became one of the pillars of Turkey’s broader vision of strategic autonomy.
At the centre of this effort stood Roketsan.
Founded in 1988 to meet Turkey’s missile and munitions requirements, the company initially participated in a European project to produce Stinger missiles before moving into artillery rocket systems during the 1990s.
Turkey eventually turned to China after attempts to secure similar cooperation from the United States failed, while talks with Russia and Pakistan yielded few results.
In 1997, Turkey’s Ministry of Defence signed an agreement with China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, or CPMIEC, for the supply of 200 WS-1 rockets.
The agreement also included technical assistance that enabled Roketsan to produce an additional 1,300 missiles domestically.
The WS-1 used solid fuel and had a range of 100 kilometres. However, its accuracy was limited, with a circular error probable exceeding one kilometre.
Roketsan renamed its domestically produced version the TR-300 Kasırga, meaning “Storm”, and began production in 1998.
The company later developed more advanced variants, including the export version TR-300E, which extended the range to 120 kilometres.
Accuracy improved dramatically to less than ten metres thanks to the integration of inertial navigation supported by satellite guidance.
The upgraded missile entered Turkish service in 2016 and was later exported to Azerbaijan and Bangladesh.
A year after signing the WS-1 agreement, Turkey concluded another deal to produce the B-611 ballistic missile under the name Yıldırım, meaning “Lightning”.
The agreement transferred manufacturing infrastructure and technical expertise to Roketsan.
The missile used solid fuel and had a range of 150 kilometres.
In 2007, the Turkish military unveiled the locally produced version, designated J-600T Yıldırım.
From Yıldırım to Bora and Tayfun
In 2009, Turkey’s Defence Industries Presidency awarded Roketsan a contract to increase Yıldırım’s range to 300 kilometres and improve its precision.
The result was Bora, meaning “Storm”.
The missile used a larger fuel load, a lighter warhead and a reduced weight structure.
Its accuracy improved from around 150 metres to approximately ten metres through a guidance system combining inertial navigation with American satellite positioning.
Bora underwent its first public test in 2014.
Five years later, the Turkish military used the missile against a PKK target in northern Iraq, marking the first combat use of a Turkish ballistic missile.
Roketsan later marketed Bora internationally under the name Khan.
Indonesia became its first export customer in 2022.
The missile represented a major milestone in Turkey’s pursuit of long range precision strike capabilities, granting Turkish ground forces an offensive capacity previously associated primarily with air power.
Following Bora, Roketsan began work on a new generation of ballistic missiles under the name Tayfun.
The missile completed its first test in 2022, travelling more than 560 kilometres over the Black Sea at speeds exceeding Mach 5.
After several successful trials, Roketsan received a serial production contract in 2024.
Deliveries to the Turkish Navy began the following year.
At IDEF 2025, Turkey unveiled the Tayfun Block 4 variant.
Weighing 7,200 kilograms and measuring ten metres in length, the missile is believed to exceed a range of 1,000 kilometres.
Its development reflects a significant shift in Turkish military thinking.
Ballistic missiles are no longer viewed solely as tactical tools tied to border conflicts. They are increasingly seen as strategic weapons capable of striking deep inside enemy territory and imposing substantial costs on adversaries.
The unveiling of the Yıldırım Khan intercontinental missile, with a stated range of 6,000 kilometres, further underlines Turkey’s ambition to build a long range deterrent capability.
This direction is closely linked to Ankara’s recent disputes with the West, particularly after Turkey was excluded from the F-35 fighter programme.
Turkey has since pursued alternatives that reduce reliance on manned air power, helping explain its growing investment in missiles, drones and unmanned systems.
Drones, Cruise Missiles and Networked Warfare
Turkey’s missile programme does not exist in isolation.
It forms part of a broader military transformation centred on drones, precision strikes, networked warfare and reduced dependence on traditional heavy platforms.
This relationship became apparent during conflicts in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, where Bayraktar TB2 drones demonstrated the effectiveness of combining real-time intelligence with low-cost precision strikes.
Yet these campaigns also exposed the limitations of lightweight drone munitions, particularly against fortified or distant targets.
As a result, Ankara accelerated the development of cruise missiles and loitering munitions.
Turkey began work in the early 2000s on a long range land attack cruise missile known as Gezgin.
The programme aimed to develop a missile with a range exceeding 1,000 kilometres.
However, consultations with defence companies revealed that Turkey’s industrial base had not yet matured sufficiently to produce such a system.
Export restrictions on critical technologies, particularly small turbojet engines, further delayed the project.
Turkey initially intended to use the French Safran TRI-40 engine but later shifted its focus to Ukraine’s AI-35 engine produced by Ivchenko-Progress.
At the same time, Kale Jet Engines launched a domestic engine development programme.
After years of research and development, the company successfully produced the KTJ-3200 turbojet engine, becoming Turkey’s first indigenous engine designed for cruise missiles.
Turkey has also conducted flight tests of the SOM-J cruise missile, which is expected to become part of the weapons package for the KAAN fighter jet.
The missile is also being considered for integration with combat drones such as Kızılelma and Anka-3.
Alongside programmes such as Gezgin, the Atmaca anti-ship missile and Kemankeş loitering munitions, these developments point towards Turkey’s ambition to create a multi-platform precision strike ecosystem capable of launching simultaneous attacks from land, sea, air and unmanned systems.
The Difficult Road Ahead
Despite its progress, Turkey still faces significant challenges in building a mature missile force.
Ankara’s defence industry often follows a top-down model in which combat platforms are developed first and critical subsystems are localised later.
This approach leaves Turkey dependent on foreign supply chains in several areas.
Propulsion technology remains one of the programme’s biggest vulnerabilities.
Engine technology is tightly controlled by major powers, and Turkey has repeatedly encountered restrictions involving Western suppliers.
One example was the collapse of Turkey’s attack helicopter sale to Pakistan after the United States refused to grant export licences for the engines used in the aircraft.
Turkey has also faced political pressure over its cooperation with China.
In 2013, Ankara selected CPMIEC to develop the T-LORAMIDS long range missile defence system in a deal worth around 3.4 billion US dollars.
The decision triggered opposition within NATO and the United States over concerns relating to technology transfer and interoperability.
Turkey ultimately abandoned the project in 2015 and opted instead to pursue a domestic solution.
Challenges extend beyond engines.
Turkey still relies partially on foreign suppliers for certain electronic components, precision navigation systems, sensors and software.
Stricter sanctions or export restrictions could therefore affect the pace of several programmes, particularly advanced cruise missiles and long range ballistic systems.
Operational challenges also remain.
An effective missile force requires intelligence networks, satellites, command and control systems and long range targeting capabilities.
Turkey is still developing these supporting capabilities while attempting to integrate them with its missile and drone infrastructure.
Geography presents another obstacle.
Testing facilities along the Black Sea coast offer limited space for safely testing long range missiles.
For this reason, Turkey is investing in a spaceport in Somalia near the equator.
The project, which began in late 2024 and is estimated to cost around 350 million US dollars, is expected to support satellite launches and allow long range missile tests over the Indian Ocean.
At the same time, geopolitical considerations impose additional constraints.
The expansion of Turkey’s ballistic missile programme could raise concerns within NATO and the United States, while regional actors such as Greece and Israel may view the programme as a strategic challenge.
Consequently, Ankara continues to frame its missile projects primarily in terms of defence and deterrence rather than offensive ambitions.
Despite its aspiration for greater defence self-sufficiency, Turkey remains constrained by economic realities.
There is a significant gap between successfully testing missile prototypes and fielding a sustainable strategic deterrent capable of mass production, secure supply chains and continuous development under external pressure.
Nevertheless, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London argues that Turkey’s growing portfolio of cruise missiles places it among a limited number of countries capable of developing such systems domestically.
Combined with ballistic missiles already in production and several advanced projects under development, Ankara is increasingly establishing itself as a country with a significant missile industrial base.
Ultimately, Turkey now views ballistic and cruise missiles as essential tools for protecting its geopolitical ambitions in a region where confidence in external security guarantees is fading and self-reliance is becoming increasingly important.
Source: Al Jazeera
