The Turkish government’s ties with Qatar have put a spotlight on the growing problem of transparency and accountability in Turkey’s defense industry, with a key tank project awarded to a Turkish-Qatari joint venture appearing to be on the rocks. 

A raft of fresh deals with Qatar in late November rekindled opposition criticism that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s close bonds with Qatar’s ruler lack transparency and flout Turkey’s national interests. During a live TV debate Nov. 29, opposition lawmaker Ali Mahir Basarir fiercely criticized the government over the privatization of a national tank factory in Arifiye in the northwestern province of Sakarya. The Turkish military has been “sold off to Qatar” for $50 million, he said, adding that the factory was its “most strategic” asset.

Basarir, a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was referring to the factory’s 25-year lease to BMC, a Turkish-Qatari venture, by a presidential decree last year. Ethem Sancak, a businessman close to Erdogan, holds 25% of BMC shares and chairs the company’s executive board. Talip Ozturk, a distant relative of Erdogan, owns 25.1% of the venture, while the remaining 49.9% stake belongs to Barzan Holdings, which is owned by the Qatar Armed Forces Industry Committee. 

The joint venture has pledged to invest $685 million in Turkey’s defense industry, including for the joint production of Turkey’s first indigenous new-generation main battle tank, Altay, a project it won in 2018. The details of the partnership deal between BMC and the Qataris remain unbeknownst to public institutions, including the parliament’s National Defense Commission, which is supposed to oversee the government’s defense and security procurements as well as the defense industry but has become fully dysfunctional since Erdogan assumed sweeping executive powers in 2018.