The United Kingdom and Türkiye have agreed to intensify their defence cooperation.

This agreement, aimed at fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity for both nations, was formalised by the UK’s Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, and his Turkish counterpart, Minister of National Defence, Yaşar Güler.

The newly signed Statement of Intent on defence cooperation sets the framework for increased collaboration, focusing on activities that are intended to benefit the security and prosperity of both countries. This agreement is seen as a step towards improving national, regional, and international security.

Key initiatives under this agreement include enhanced collaboration between the defence industries of both countries, planning for joint training exercises in the Mediterranean, and exploring security support in regions like North Africa and the Middle East.

The talks also covered the situation in the Middle East, with an emphasis on the need for de-escalation. Defence Secretary Shapps expressed his gratitude to Minister Güler for Türkiye’s role in using its position as the gatekeeper to the Black Sea to facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain.

There was a mutual understanding of the importance of continuing support for Ukraine in light of Russia’s ongoing aggression.

In his statement, Defence Secretary Shapps said:

“I was very pleased to meet my counterpart, Minister Güler, and to jointly agree to deepen the UK-Turkish defence relationship. Türkiye stands at the crossroads of three continents and, at a time of such global instability, their influence cannot be underestimated. The agreement we’ve signed will see our relationship go from strength-to-strength and enhance our nations’ defence and security co-operation.”

This first face-to-face meeting between Shapps and Güler also touched upon the progress of Sweden’s accession to NATO, with the UK Defence Secretary hoping for a swift Turkish parliamentary ratification.

For further information on this topic, you can read more by clicking here.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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45 COMMENTS

  1. The Tory’s are doing an awesome job at signing us up for more and more global commitments while reducing the budget and force size. Another Grant Shapps cluster ****.

    • South Korea one day, turkey the next. Greece tomorrow perhaps?
      I thought the U.K. would avoid being seen to take sides in the Greece turkey carry on.
      I don’t know enough about these agreements that seem to be happening a lot. Part of me thinks they are just meaningless nonsense from politicians needinhg something to put out. I could be wrong and perhaps they mean something.

      • It’s all becoming self serving opportunism for good or bad. Greece has tied itself to France so the obvious advantage to Britain is opening up more opportunities with Turkey to add to those already in existence esp as it’s tougher to compete for EU Country/company deals now.

        Opportunities with Turkey whatever their rogue stances on occasion are of course rather substantial in all manner of potential deals and now that we aren’t in the EU there is no opportunity for any quid quo pro of furthering their admission being raised, as we have seen played out over Sweden.

        I guess they are no worse than dealing with Saudi and other Arab States so no reason not to on moral grounds whatever our distaste for their adventurism. In all honesty (as Saudi are beginning to do) their cosying up with Russia is just a play to be taken seriously, retaining independence but mostly using it as pressure to get Western concessions not unlike the game Hungary are playing inside the EU. When you are part of NATO it’s not difficult to play one power off of another knowing that as long as you don’t push too far collective defence protects you from Russia while you have some freedom to play your game of two halves where it suits.

        • For Turkey, stakes are serious. They invaded Syria, provided help to invasion of Armenia, threatened Greece and Cyprus and play silly Djihadist in Libya and Mali. Grey Wolf use mob style actions and threaten elected mayer in France, conduct attacks against other migrant groupes. Turkey also promote muslim brotherhood who create jihadist mivements in France and destabilized Egypt. Well… fabulons partner.
          I don’t imply my country has only vertuous ally, but in the case of Turkey… I barely see an interest at all. At best, thé interest would be to avoid Turkey to become a Chineese parasite.
          Soinet or later, we will have to face the threat they issue. They will attack european in the Balkans, Greece or Cyprus.They keep saying they want to kill us. What a marvelous partner.
          I don’t like Macron, but he is the president of France. Insults from Erdogan did not get unnoticed. Good luck with such nice fellows. And remember what Erdogan said: each muslim women coming to Europe is carrying the djihadists of tomorow. That’ s what he wants.
          I have a few difficult to see the alignment of values and interest.

      • Well sunak has refused to meet with the Greek priminister because he happened to mention that it would be nice if they could have some marble statues back…apparently keeping a few statues in a room in London is more important than a relationship with a NATO ally.

    • what most worries me there is if these Countries trying to manipulate for their own micro benefits just might send enough of a message and resulting miscalculation on a macro scale to Russia that might delusion-ally feel it can start confronting NATO outposts like the Baltic States or Finland (and indeed Sweden which NATO or most of it woukd feel obliged to defend) and get away with it, due to what it sees as a lack of unity. As we see in Ukraine a very stupid decision is very difficult to pull out of, even a small Russia/NATO provocation would be very difficult to suppress for either side.

      • I agree, if NATO has a weakness it’s political fracture and disfunction..some nations use NATO as a political weapon and bring more risk than benefit ( looking at Turkey and potentially some Balkan states).

    • I’d support kicking one out (Hungary probably) just to make an example for the rest of them.

      NATO was once a very exclusive league of western alliance members with deep trust and connections. It’s become a circus of tiny country crackpots. Many US-UK defense programs that used run through NATO now run direct to avoid the politics of the alliance. AUKUS is a prominent example of this.

    • Not so much of a stretch looking at events in Libya and the maritime dispute with Egypt.

      At one time, not that many years ago, there were Turkish maps, which tried to divide the Eastern Med, so that the Turkish Exclusive Economic Zone touched the Libyan one, with Libya being a puppet state of Turkey during the civil war. The division requires looking at UNCLOS with an unconventional squint, less blatant than China’s dashes surrounding the South China Sea, but you get the picture. It’s sometimes called Turkey’s Blue Homeland. One idea was to frustrate gas pipelines going from Egypt/Israel/Cyprus to Greece and southern Europe, without Turkish influence. The E/I/C/G linkup came with those countries making EEZ claims of their own leaving Turkey out, and the Turkey/Libya response was a Turkish escalating reaction.

      There was considerable heat being injected by both sides in 2019/20. All seems a bit quieter now, but I doubt the Turkish claims to larger parts of the Med are going to disappear.

      You can get a flavour of the Northern part of it from the Wiki article: Aegean dispute. Also check out the the Libya–Turkey maritime deal, and the Turkish intervention in Libya in support of the UN recognised government in 2019/20. The intervention is thought to have involved the first destruction of a large Chinese drone by a Turkish mobile laser truck in 2019.

  4. If you rely upon Erdogan’s Turkey ensure that you keep your fingers. legs and eyes crossed as they are about as reliable as a basket of rattlesnakes.

  5. Can we get an agreement that the U.K. government will make sure it has enough equipment and trained personnel to keep the U.K. and it’s interests safe.

    • Maybe their idea is we rely on those we have agreements with to take care of us so we don’t have to do it ourselves. Nothing would surprise me with these chancers…

    • I think the idea is that if we pile up all the agreements and press releases we can use them instead of sand bags?

      • You lack ambition….load them all onto ICMBs and bury those commies under piles and piles of papers…by the time they have dug themselves out they will realise that the British armed force 10 person future expeditionary force has such power force multipliers and enablers that all their battle groups, squadrons and warships are pointlessly out of date and would have no chance.

    • Not if you look at the TPL site, it appears. Lot of the fundmental issues raised you’d have thought had been similar some years back. At each point we had a smaller population pool and larger navy – armed forces altogether. We’ve cut vessel numbers and crew sizes significantly even since my day, so I’m puzzled from erstwhile inside perspective 🤔

  6. All of these agreements are all well and good, but with no increase in size of the armed forces they are useless, particularly with the Navy.

    Fantasising about RN ships blockading North Korea is pointless when the RN can’t even stop British owned ships being hijacked by state sponsored piracy.

    If the RN can’t even protect the Merchant Navy and British owned ships in peacetime, what will happen in a potential war? The direct threats to the UK in war should be the RNs first priority before CSG and expeditionary nonsense. That means sufficient ships, submarines and aircraft to hunt Russian subs, and enough ships capable of convoy protection so at a minimum armed with CAMM, some sort of submarine detection system for subs whether that be a hull mounted sonar or towed arrays from UUVs and USVs, and Stingray armed drones.

    • Then there’s 2 classes of surface combatants with no anti sub ability whatsoever. Its not like the country has no experience of being strangled by enemy submarines. Painful lessons discarded all too easily.

      • We’re being set up to fail. Intentionally or not. We can’t go on cutting way below bare necessity. Those who hand us over to disaster will quit the UK PDQ with their ill gotten riches for safer shores or do deals with our new oppressors they’ve facilitated.

    • Yet to understand the rationale, especially if you’re a relatively small Navy (beyond cost saving – if that’s indeed rational as war approaches), of assuming our T26 sub-hunters need cutting edge hull & machinery sound absorption; but a vessel optimised for anti-air doesn’t – even if it’s based upon a derivative, as has been considered. As if an enemy submarine’s not going to see you’re AA &/or GP as a valuable target just because it’s not directly optimised for hunting that sub. You’ve already solved the quieting issues during the naval design, so why denude the derivative vessel it’s primarily based upon?

      Need more attack submarines, absolutely, as the primary sub-sea capital asset. But, aside from Intel and S/Forces delivery, they’re very close to one trick ponies.

      Though one can debate the merits of Escort vs Fleet versions, Carriers are the ultimate surface unit, by definition. Flexibly fitted for but not with the latest type aircraft over their lifetime. So the ultimate compliment to an adequate sub fleet, to my mind – not that you’re arguing against, just usage, I presume.

      On the aircraft front, I note that F35 is being optimised further toward anti-surface capability – that’s if you agree to virtually any weapon the US intends to manufacture, rather than you’re own perfectly good alternatives, it seems. Which indicates you sure as hell are going to need those Atlantic convoys for that provision alone, evidently. That after waiting in line alongside other Allies for the same US systems. Assuming whoever’s in charge in the States doesn’t decide they do not wish prolonged involvement in Europe, and restricts weapons accordingly*.

      In short; what’s acceptable in peacetime, needs sovereign capability during multiplying existential crises.

      * which may yet transpire with regard to UKR….

      KRs

  7. I just love the close ties we have these lovely countries that are a bastion of democracy and all we hold dear. Oh hang on, wait a sec…

    • 1) Still haven’t ‘politically placed’ Turkey with regard to east-west perspective, going forward. But maybe that’s where our Diplomacy skills will reap dividend.

      2) Still askance at present over the status of the USA, also going forward i.e. as the West’s primary Bastion of Democracy. Trump was always going to be Trump (we’ve known pretty well what he’s like from years back in the UK – particularly Scotland’s familiarity, I’d say). However, I’d had more faith in Washington’s checks & balances than last transpired.

      That the GOP espied a chance to overturn a lawful presidential election, and thus maintain power by silent acquiescence , was disgraceful in the round. Effectively, a violent coup attempt ensued, hopeless or otherwise.

      If they cannot contain a President’s ‘absolute power’, then they may have to take a leaf out of our book – and behead one or two. Pour encourager les autres. 💀

      • Need to lose the liberal media propaganda talking points.

        1. Less wars started under trump than any president since bill Clinton. Now Democrats have war across the Middle East and Europe.
        2. The GOP didn’t “try” to overturn an election. Though, how more people voted for Biden than there are registered voters does raise questions that the media are NOT ALLOWED to bring up.
        3. No “violent coup” ensued. The police LET protestors into the capitol building. One scared cop shot and unarmed woman. A violent coup in the US would be a civil war. There are more guns than people.

        Turn off CNN, it’s democrat party propaganda.

        • Oh, come on; liberal media talking points, these are my conservative views on Trump from decades back. Lose the literal interpretation and embrace the meaning. The reference to CNN? Not needed, never viewed – but you have, by inference.

        • I think, as an American, you have a vastly inflated opinion of your President’s ability, or otherwise, to prevent and cause wars. Put frankly, there was nothing Biden or anyone other than Putin could do to stop Ukraine, whilst Hamas were always going to attack Israel, it’s “literally” in their constitution, just like the right to bear arms is in yours.

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