Canada has plans to develop defense cooperation with Turkiye, as country's defense department head Stephen Fuhr noted earlier, Ottawa is ready for cooperation with Ankara in several directions, ammunition production, unmanned aerial vehicles and counter-drone assets. Defense minister does not exclude Canada in future may not only purchase Turkish weapons but also participate in joint developments.
As Middle East Eye reports citing own source, Canada is interested in strengthening own military with new MALE-class drones (medium-altitude long-endurance UAVs). It is noted negotiations currently proceed at early stage and are far from concrete actions. Defense Express emphasizes this is vivid story about how Turkiye through U.S. can obtain new and genuinely unexpected buyer for their unmanned aerial vehicles.
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For example, even seven years ago imagining this was quite difficult, as situation was radically different, back in 2019 due to Turkish Operation Peace Spring in Syria, Canada paused issuing new weapons export permits to Turkiye, and over next two years ultimately canceled almost three dozen export licenses.
Reason for such decision was TB2 drones' use against Armenia, which became impetus for checking whether Canadian electro-optical station (EOS) re-export to Azerbaijan was lawful.
Since then Turkish drone was critically dependent on Canadian WESCAM-manufactured EOS, unmanned system risked being left without its eyes altogether. This prompted Turkish defense industry to present alternative as quickly as possible, which Aselsan company ultimately developed.
Four years after this, in 2024, Ottawa and Ankara agreed to restore weapons export. Now Canada wants to purchase Turkish drones, behind closed doors Canadians directly say Turkiye should be grateful to Donald Trump for this, who maximally scares Canada away from further defense cooperation — currently Ottawa works on reducing American weapons dependence.
Naturally, should note this will not work with everything for example, there are cases when abandoning U.S. weapons is difficult specifically due to military needs, like F-35 fighter, which today on market is effectively only serial solution among fifth-generation aircraft. Also recently Canada purchased HIMARS missile systems, moreover did this secretly.
However, also opposite examples when country genuinely wants to maximally distance from U.S. in defense cooperation question. For example, previously it became known Canada as observer wants to join British-Japanese-Italian sixth-generation Tempest fighter project, and this is about U.S. betrayal since 1946.
Considering likely Turkiye-Canada drone cooperation, developing unmanned fighter direction — so-called loyal wingman drones Canada judging by everything will also not be with United States.
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