A few days after the February 6 earthquake, Selcuk Bajraktar stood in front of a pile of rubble in the disaster zone. He looked exhausted and sad. More than five thousand people died in the disaster, and hundreds of thousands lost their homes. In a video posted by Bajraktar on Twitter, he promised to build 1000 new homes and 2000 accommodation facilities for the victims.
Bajraktar is not a rescue worker. He is not even a member of the Turkish government. He is the co-owner of the Turkish defense company Bajkar. The company's remote-controlled drones have gained a certain cult status in Ukraine because they helped the country's military repel a Russian invasion at the start of the war. A Ukrainian soldier even dedicated a pop song to them, and the Kiev Zoo named a baby lemur Bajkar.
His address to the Turkish public after the earthquake left the impression that he wanted responsibility. Bajraktar is married to Sumeya Erdogan, the youngest daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is why many believe he could be in a position to succeed his father-in-law as Turkish leader.
After 20 years in power, this is the first time Erdogan will seriously fear he might not be elected in the May 14 election. The opposition candidate Kemal Kilizdaroglu is currently in the lead, according to all surveys.
However, regardless of the outcome of the election, Erdogan has already announced that this will be the last time he runs, and observers believe he is looking for a successor to whom he can hand the helm. His children have no real chance of being elected to office for various reasons, and Berat Albajrak, the husband of his eldest daughter Esra, did not make a name for himself as Minister of Finance. Precisely because of this, the focus is now on Bajraktar, whose name is mentioned more and more often in the debate about Erdogan's successor. When asked about it in a recently broadcast television show, Bajraktar dismissed the speculation as "gossip".
Even if Erdogan loses the election, Bajraktar's success has made him so popular in Turkey that no government will be able to ignore him and his company. His influence in Turkish politics is likely to only grow.
The Bajkar company became Turkey's largest arms exporter in 2021, with annual sales of $664 million, and the company grew further due to the war in Ukraine. Last year, Bajkar shipped drones and other technology worth 1,18 billion to 18 countries.
The armies have deployed "Bajraktar TB2" drones to the fronts in Libya, Nagorno Karabakh, as well as in Ethiopia. "It enabled a fairly significant operational revolution in the way of warfare," Ridge Outzen, a former Turkish expert at the State Department, told The New Yorker magazine.
The headquarters of the Bajkar company in the suburbs of Istanbul looks more like a university complex than a weapons factory. One afternoon last summer, mostly young employees walked around in jeans and hoodies. One group played volleyball on the company's sports field. Selçuk Bajraktar decorated the office on the top floor of the glass and concrete building with aircraft models, while a pilot's jacket hangs on the coat rack.
Symbol of Turkish military industry
Bajraktar is 43 years old and looks like a movie star with strong facial features and dark hair. His father, Ozdemir, founded the company in the 1980s as a supplier to the automotive industry. His mother Kanan is an economist and programmer. Bajraktar says that as a child he was fascinated by everything related to technology. "For me, it's a way of life."
Bajraktar later moved to the United States, where he studied mechanical engineering in Pennsylvania and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He returned to Turkey in 2007 and helped establish the drone department in Bajkar. The breakthrough came seven years later, when the company equipped the Turkish military with drones in the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Bajraktar likes to tell how he traveled to the front lines in the mountains of southeastern Turkey to develop a drone.
The unmanned aerial vehicle "Bajraktar TB2" has a wingspan of only 12 meters, a tail propeller and three wheels. It is armed with up to four laser-guided bombs or missiles. It cannot fly as far as the American or Israeli models, nor can it carry the same heavy loads, but it costs only $5 million, which is about one-sixth the price of the American "ripper" drone. This makes the drone extremely attractive to small and medium-sized military forces.
In Libya, "Bajraktar" drones helped the official government in Tripoli to suppress the uprising of Khalifa Haftar. In Nagorno-Karabakh, they played a decisive role in Azerbaijan's victory over Armenia, after which autocrat Ilham Aliyev celebrated by showing footage of a drone strike on big screens in the capital, Baku. The Ukrainians mostly deployed them in the first months of the war, before Russian air defenses adapted to their strategy. The fact that drones are delivered only to countries that are close to Erdogan's government is striking.
Bajkar is a symbol of the Turkish defense industry, which has grown tenfold since Erdogan came to power in 2003. "We are no longer beggars," Erdogan said in an address to Turkish military recruits. "Everyone wants them from us," he said, commenting on drones. During the election campaign, he showed off defense products, including a warship from which drones will be launched in the future. However, experts warn that the large uncontrolled proliferation of drones like the "bayraktar TB2" makes conflicts unpredictable.
There are also reports of civilian casualties during the attack. Ismail Shamdin has built a new life in Qamishli, in northeastern Syria, after he and his family fled the Islamic State terrorist militia. His sister Hurija says that Shamdin - who has a daughter and two-month-old twins - found a job as a car mechanic in the city. Last summer, he was in the workshop when a Turkish drone hit him and killed him instantly, Huria said. His sister believes the target was a Kurdish forces officer in Syria who brought the car in for repairs.
Comparisons with Elon Musk
Turkey has been waging a war against the PKK and its Syrian branch YPG for years and is increasingly using TB2 drones for that purpose. According to the Kurdish Autonomous Administration in Syria, several dozen civilians were killed in Turkish drone attacks last year alone. US Senator Bob Mendez from the Democratic Party said that the Turkish sale of drones is "dangerous, destabilizing and a threat to peace and human rights".
Even if Erdogan loses the election, Bajraktar's success has made him so popular in Turkey that no government will be able to ignore him and his company
In an interview from his office in Istanbul, Selcuk Bajraktar dismisses all criticism of the drone program. He claims that drones are more accurate than other weapons, and because the attacks are recorded, he insists there is greater responsibility.
Bajraktar likes to present himself as a tech geek, more interested in computer code than politics. However, he has actually been carefully shaping his image since marrying Sumeya Erdogan in 2016. He regularly posts Islamic blessings on Instagram and Twitter, where he has two and a half million followers each. He also supports educational initiatives. When he appears in public, he often wears a red pilot jacket.
And while President Erdogan is conducting shuttle diplomacy between Kiev and Moscow in the Ukrainian war, Bajraktar has unequivocally sided with Ukraine. "We have a moral obligation to help Ukraine," he said. Then he quoted Benjamin Franklin: "Men who are ready to exchange liberty for temporary security, deserve neither, and will lose both." However, he refrains from directly commenting on current political events.
When asked about his political ambitions, Bajraktar only says that his main responsibility at the moment is the company "Bajkar". He must have closely followed how the husband of Erdogan's second daughter, Berat Albajrak, burned himself during his short stay in the government.
Bajraktar has a lot to offer that can help him be successful in Turkish politics. For example, his father Ozdemir was a confidant of the former Islamist Prime Minister Nejmetin Erbakan, and one prototype of the "bayraktar TB2" drone was dedicated to Erbakan. Through his marriage to Sumeja, Bajraktar also has access to Turkish power circles. He also has a successful career in the private sector. Some in Turkey are already comparing him with the entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Erdogan is currently busy with the election campaign. However, Bajraktar is young enough to wait patiently for his turn.
Prepared by: N. Bogetić
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