Türkiye’s SSB Chief: 28 Firms Joined NATO’s SHINE Drills at ALFA 2026, 56% of Exports Go to Allies
Türkiye’s defence procurement chief said 28 domestic companies took part in this year’s edition of a NATO-linked technology demonstration in Istanbul, more than double the number that joined a year earlier, as Ankara pushes to deepen its role inside the alliance’s innovation pipeline.
Prof. Dr. Haluk Görgün, President of the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB), made the remarks at ALFA 2026, an artificial intelligence, quantum, CBRN and autonomous-systems technology demonstration held in Istanbul from October 5 to 8. The event ran alongside SHINE, the final phase of NATO Allied Command Transformation’s (NATO ACT) Innovation Continuum (IC) 2026 programme.
The demonstration was coordinated by the SSB’s R&D and Technology Management Department and staged across three venues: the Naval Academy of the National Defence University, the Tuzla Infantry School, and Teknopark Istanbul. Live feeds from three of the six scenarios run in Istanbul were streamed to the SHINE activity in Halifax, Canada, where 25 Turkish firms took part across three scenarios of their own. Görgün noted that Türkiye hosted NATO Innovation Continuum 2025 with 13 participating companies — meaning this year’s industrial base roughly doubled.
Görgün told the audience Türkiye has long been recognised as NATO’s second-largest standing army, and argued the country’s defence industry is now adding qualitative, not just quantitative, weight to the alliance’s collective defence. “As NATO 3.0 is being designed, Türkiye will be one of the central countries in that design,” he said, adding that next-generation technologies are “no longer just on paper or in the lab, but in the field.”
He listed six focus areas under development: protection of critical undersea infrastructure, multi-domain operations, CBRN defence, autonomous swarm systems, next-generation decision support and quantum technologies, citing programmes named MİLDAR, TORAMAN, KAPTAN, SÜMER, KAFES, DEKON and BADE without disclosing further technical detail.
On partnerships, Görgün said Turkish Aerospace Industries’ (TUSAŞ) HÜRJET trainer jet was offered to meet Spain’s requirement for an advanced jet trainer, with Spanish industry involved in the process. He also pointed to UAV cooperation with Italy and the United Kingdom, and warship-production cooperation with Portugal and Romania, framing all three as “win-win” arrangements that place Turkish industry inside NATO’s own industrial base.
A memorandum of understanding was signed with NATO ACT during the event, intended to put the cooperation on an institutional, lasting footing. Görgün added that the NATO Defence Industry Forum was held in Ankara this year as a standalone event for the first time, alongside the Leaders’ Summit.
He also said 56% of Türkiye’s defence and aerospace exports now go to NATO member states — a figure that, combined with the doubled company count and the new ACT memorandum, points to a Turkish defence sector positioning itself less as a supplier to NATO and more as a co-designer within its innovation and testing architecture.
Spain’s own decision and timeline on HÜRJET have not yet been made public; the trainer still competes in the European market against the M-346, the T-50 and the T-7A. The explicit statement that Ankara “answered Spain’s need” marks a shift from earlier commentary, which had focused mainly on delivery-timeline projections and competitor comparisons, toward confirmation at an official government level.
Sources
- Anadolu Agency via Foreks, “Savunma Sanayii Başkanı Görgün ALFA 2026’da konuştu: İspanya’nın ileri jet eğitim uçağı ihtiyacına TUSAŞ’ın geliştirdiği HÜRJET ile yanıt verdik”, 8 October 2026 — used for the HÜRJET-Spain and partnership quotes.
- Anadolu Agency via Foreks, “SSB Başkanı Görgün: Türkiye bugün NATO’nun kolektif savunma kapasitesine büyük katkılar sunmakta”, 8 October 2026 — used for event details, participation numbers and the NATO ACT memorandum.
- Milliyet/Uzmanpara, “Haluk Görgün: Türkiye NATO’nun kolektif savunma kapasitesine büyük katkılar sunmakta”, 8 October 2026 — used as a corroborating source.
