The main guest on the evening was Mr Ozgur Eksi, founder of TurkDef (Turkish Defence’ and President of Diplomacy Correspondents Association (www.turdef.com)
The discussion was moderated by Mr Justin Crump, CEO Sibylline
The founder of TurDef, Özgür Ekşi, has BA (Istanbul U), MSc (U of London / SOAS) and MA (Paris Sud XI/ CERIS) degrees in international relations. He has been working in the media sector since 1993, and he started to focus on the defence industry in 2005. He worked as Defence Correspondent of Hürriyet Daily between 2005-2012. He co-established and ran C4Defence between 2012-2020. He founded TurDef (Turkish Defence) in February 2021. He is currently the President of the Diplomacy Correspondents Association (DMD).
Mr Eksi has a leading position in understanding the Turkish defence sector, and particularly Anglo Turkish relations, plus the global context. He was the one person who got a meeting with the SoS for Defence during his visit to Turkey just after he took office, to discuss matters such as Eurofighter and drones.
Mr Eksi spoke about Turkish defence industry opportunities, especially in the context of European re-armament, and the relationship with the UK in particular. The meeting included discussing the opportunities for international businesses as well as lessons learned from the Turkish approach to generating “mass” for modern warfare.
