That's not the case at all. Bayraktar TB2 has a very high locality rate, more than 93%. It never turned out to be "imported and assembled."
Just off the top of my head the engine austrian rotex engine? British fuel pumps from Andair, Wescam optics, Germin GPS hardware, French Areo supplied brake fluid cannisters, other guidance systems from germany i think even the tires were from a British company.
I don't personally care that the guy used foreign components, what he did still requires brains and technical ability and we all know the best way to play this game is to make what you can now, buy what you need while running projects in the background to fill the gaps in. So we know today most of TB2 is domestically made. And when we look at the results, he not only helped turn Turkiye into a global drone producer but the overall brand of Turkiye rose with it. Its had a net positive effect on everything else we produce. So if you produce land vehicles, well the defence industry brand went up and now your products are more desirable as an example.
This doesn't even include how it helped us geopolitically in active combat. If we don't have that style of drone warfare could we have achieved what we achieved in syria or libya?
I also understand that Baykar is a business and its about making money and they need to sell the dream and i also suspect that had they been honest Turks would swing the other way and condemn the project saying its all foreign made.
But the point stands he told people something that simply wasnt true, infact it was the opposite of truth. So only believe from him what you can prove for yourself. But in the grand schemes of things the outcome of Baykars success has almost entirely been positive, if not entirely.
My own opinion is that this is all theatre. All these guys know each other well and their families all know each other. Its just another piece of entertainment to help AK partys election campaign. You simply wouldnt go after Baykar, it makes no sense whatsoever if you are trying to win an election, it only makes sense if you are trying to help AK party.
anyway i wont comment further on the issue, this thread isnt for politics.