Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was Turkey’s prime minister at the time, led several attempts to buy Predator drones from the US, but these were rebuffed by Congress, which
Turkey then began its own development programmes, in large part masterminded by Selçuk Bayraktar, an ambitious former MIT PhD student, who is now married to Erdoğan’s youngest daughter, Sümeyye.
It is a sophisticated piece of equipment, described by some experts as “the intelligent hand” that ensures that
EDO MBM is owned by the US company L3 Harris, the world’s sixth-largest defence contractor. But because EDO MBM is located in the UK it is subject to British and not US
Neither L3 Harris nor Baykar would comment on their technology or relationship.Barry Gardiner, Labour’s international trade spokesman, said he was concerned about UK arms sales to Turkey.