Daily: Turkey surpasses France on UAV development

PARIS (AA) - Turkey for the past 10 years has been developing its national industrial capacity of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), outdistancing countries like France, a French local newspaper said on Thursday.

The daily L'Opinion said the Turkish military showed its capacity in UAV operations over the last week and that the drones Turkey has developed were smaller, less costly and more effective than those used by France.

The newspaper emphasized that Turkey's Operation Spring Shield in northwestern Syria was to stop the Bashar al-Assad regime from capturing the Idlib region, noting that the operation was begin conducted per NATO standards.

Idlib has been a stronghold of the opposition and anti-government armed groups since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

It emphasized that Turkey was currently producing better-performing UAVs and that its military could field operations without the support of the Russians due to its capabilities in electronic warfare.

On Sunday, Turkey announced a new offensive, Operation Spring Shield, in northwestern Syria to protect civilians from regime attacks.

The regime and its allies have consistently broken the terms of the 2018 cease-fire and a new one that started on Jan. 12, launching frequent attacks inside the territory. This has resulted in casualties, as well as a recent influx of irregular migrants along the border of Turkey, which already hosts over 3.7 million Syrians.

*Writing by Dilara Hamit in Ankara