The Anka, a medium-altitude and long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle designed and produced by Turkish Aerospace Industries for more than $150 million, should be in the skies this summer, according to the manufacturers.
However, even the Anka’s makers can’t say how effective it will be against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, the purpose for which it has been designed.
Efforts to design the Anka were launched in 2004 with $150 million for five aircraft, and 8 years later, the drone, whose name was inspired from a mythical flying creature, has made several partly successful test-flights.
The drone’s A version is a reconnaissance unit and the planned B version is projected to become the UAV’s unmanned combat aerial vehicle. The A version is ready, but it is not known if the B version will appear soon, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
Turkey has increasingly been trying to use UAVs against PKK capabilities in an area in its southeast, bordering Iraq and Iran.
Since the end of 2007, the United States has been involved in efforts to provide the Turkish military with active intelligence against the PKK. Using information gathered by U.S. drones, the military has hit PKK positions in northern Iraq several times since then.
The U.S. has agreed to a request by Turkey to transfer four MQ-1 Predator drones used for that purpose to bases inside Turkey as the U.S. forces prepared to withdraw from Iraq, moving the four drones to the Incirlik base inside Turkey.
Turkey separately has requested to buy four MQ-1 Predators and two MQ-9 Reaper drones from the U.S., to which a positive response has yet to be given since the request was made in early 2009.
