Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s three-day visit to Bangladesh in early June marks the start of a “new era” in Bangladesh–Turkiye relations, particularly in the realm of defense cooperation.
While defense cooperation reportedly dominated informal discussions during the visit, no specific provisions on military cooperation appeared in the signed memoranda; the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) only covered cooperation on cultural heritage preservation.
Bangladesh’s foreign minister highlighted progress on a possible free trade agreement and preferential trade agreement aimed at lifting bilateral trade to $2 billion.
However, it is defense cooperation between Dhaka and Ankara that has generated a buzz in Bangladesh’s diplomatic and security circles.
The two countries have been building a military partnership over the past decade. Fidan’s visit crystallized this trajectory by institutionalizing political and defense ties. The two sides agreed to set up ministerial-level joint committees on defense and foreign affairs and hold annual “2+2” consultations involving foreign and defense ministers. This format elevates military cooperation from transactional purchases to structured strategic dialogue, a hallmark of deeper partnerships.
The most tangible expression of this partnership is in drones. Bangladesh’s engagement with Turkiye’s unmanned systems dates back to 2022, when its armed forces signed a contract with Baykar Technology to procure Bayraktar TB2 combat drones, platforms that have already proven their mettle in Nagorno-Karabakh and the war in Ukraine.
Bangladesh’s arms purchases from Turkiye have grown rapidly since 2018, with the country acquiring 15 types of modern weaponry, including Cobra armored personnel carriers, mine-protected vehicles, multi-dimensional rocket defense systems and ground surveillance radar. During his visit to Dhaka in December 2020, Turkiye’s then Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke about Ankara’s interest in selling drones to Dhaka. In June the following year, Bangladesh signed an MoU with Roketsan, Turkiye’s state-run arms manufacturer, which produces equipment to NATO standards.
Bilateral defense cooperation has already translated into enhanced operational capability on the ground. The Bangladesh Army has already deployed 12 Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 medium-altitude long-endurance UAVs, six of which have been operational since 2023, alongside Roketsan’s TRG-300 Kaplan guided multiple rocket launch system, a roughly $60 million acquisition that began arriving in 2021 and now comprises at least 18 launchers, reload trucks and mobile command posts. Together, the drones and rockets form a sensor-to-shooter “kill chain,” pairing TB2 reconnaissance with Kaplan’s precision strikes, accurate to within 10 meters, in a doctrine modelled on Azerbaijan’s approach during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
In addition to defense systems from Turkiye, Bangladesh operates Chinese-made WS-22 rocket launchers and Nora B-52 howitzers, illustrating a layered and diversified firepower network, rather than a wholesale pivot to any single supplier.
Fidan’s visit earlier this month also pushed the military relationship toward a new phase: domestic production.
A former advisor of the interim government told The Diplomat that Dhaka is now interested in producing some of this equipment domestically with Turkish assistance, particularly drones, and that there is reportedly limited political or military opposition to such cooperation on either side.
Diplomatic and military analysts believe deeper collaboration could pave the way for factories inside Bangladesh to produce military equipment, including drones, tanks and electronic defense systems.
Former ambassador Humayun Kabir described cooperation with Turkiye as a “positive development,” while military analyst, Major (retd) Md Emdadul Islam pointed to Turkiye’s demonstrated capabilities in drone and tank production and suggested that joint manufacturing and technology transfer could follow a model that resembles Pakistan’s aircraft-production partnership with China.
This push toward co-production builds on a procurement and training relationship that deepened steadily since 2018. More than 3,000 Bangladeshi defense personnel, including members of the police and Ansar (paramilitary auxiliary force), have already received specialized training in Turkiye. Ankara has also provided technological support to the Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory for the production of shells. Transfer of technology for building patrol boats for the navy and coast guard is said to be in the pipeline.
Security analyst Brig Gen (retd) Sakhawat Hossain has argued that Turkiye represents a good option for diversifying Bangladesh’s arms sources in line with the “Forces Goal 2030”: a goal adopted by the Bangladesh armed forces to modernize its capabilities. Turkiye-made drones and missiles are competitively priced, and their manufacturing technology through transfer arrangements would benefit Bangladesh’s own defense industry over time, he said.
Taken together, these threads point to a relationship shifting from buyer and seller toward co-producer. For Dhaka, localizing drone manufacture would reduce reliance on imports, support Forces Goal 2030, and potentially open export markets across South and Southeast Asia.
For Ankara, the cooperation offers a foothold in a region where its drone exports have proven decisive in recent conflicts and where its defense industry is keen to expand beyond its traditional markets.
However, Fidan’s visit is also a reminder that ambition and agreement are not the same thing.
The absence of a signed defense MoU means that drone-production plans remain, for now, a direction of travel rather than a finalized arrangement. Analysts also caution that joint production would require sustained political will in addition to substantial investment to build a skilled domestic workforce.
What is clear is that drones have become the centerpiece of a broader recalibration in Bangladesh-Turkiye ties — one that has moved, in less than a decade, from isolated arms purchases to ministerial-level dialogue, joint training programs, and now discussions about manufacturing hardware on Bangladeshi soil.
Whether or not the $2 billion trade target and the proposed production facilities materialize according to the timelines that officials have suggested, the direction of travel for both sides is unmistakable: Dhaka is seeking to diversify its suppliers and build domestic defense capacity, while Ankara is positioning itself as a partner willing to share technology rather than simply sell hardware. Fidan’s visit may not have produced a defense MoU, but it confirmed that drones and the industrial base needed to build them now sit at the heart of how the two countries describe their future together.
