Great Interest in Roketsan Products in the Middle East: CEO Murat İkinci

Türkiye’s Roketsan views Qatar as one of its most important strategic partners in the region. “We aim to strengthen our regional partnerships by assessing opportunities such as establishing local offices, pursuing new collaborations, and advancing technology transfer initiatives. Murat İkinci, CEO of ROKETSAN told GBP Daily News.

What are the market opportunities for ROKETSAN in Qatar and the Middle East region?

There is great interest in the products of ROKETSAN in friendly and brotherly countries in the Middle East, especially Qatar, one of our country's most important strategic partners in the region. This increasing interest motivates us even more. With our wide product range, from anti-tank missile systems to air defence solutions, from naval systems to tactical systems, we are working to respond to the needs of the countries in the region in the most efficient way.

Thanks to our ability to integrate our products into different platforms, we offer solutions tailored to the operational needs of our users. In response to growing demand, we are currently engaged in negotiations to deliver our products in line with the operational requirements of several friendly and allied countries across the Middle East.

Furthermore, we aim to strengthen our regional partnerships by assessing opportunities such as establishing local offices, pursuing new collaborations, and advancing technology transfer initiatives.

Please provide an insight into the Steel Dome?

Steel Dome is an integrated defence concept in which radar, sensors, command-and-control, and layered air defence systems operate in real time within a unified architecture. Designed with a holistic approach, the system will form the backbone of Türkiye’s multi-layered air and missile defence architecture, providing a comprehensive security umbrella against the full spectrum of airborne threats.

As ROKETSAN, we form the striking power of the Steel Dome through our products developed across multiple ranges—from low to high altitude—and integrated into a wide variety of platforms. Within this project, we are contributing across all layers of the air defence architecture—both on land and at sea—through a comprehensive portfolio that includes the ALKA Directed Energy Weapon System (ALKA DEWS) SUNGUR Air Defence (AD) Missile System, BURÇ Mobile AD System, HİSAR A+ AD Missile, HİSAR-O (RF) AD Missile, SİPER Long-Range Air and Missile Defence System, LEVENT Close-In Weapon System, and MİDLAS National Vertical Launcher System.

Many of our systems currently in inventory are actively serving in the system of Steel Dome. In close coordination with our project partners, we are advancing these capabilities while expanding the architecture with next-generation systems.

ROKETSAN is also working on Directed Energy Weapon Systems such as Alka, how important are these programmes?

As threat types continue to evolve alongside technological advancement, these changes are driving the need for advanced defence solutions. In this context, our ALKA DEWS delivers a critical capability by detecting, tracking, and neutralizing unmanned aerial threats through laser-based engagement. ALKA is the only energy weapon in the inventory of the Turkish Armed Forces.

Since 2019, we have been continuing to develop ALKA, which can neutralize asymmetric threats such as mini/micro-UAVs and drones, with new capabilities. At this point, based on our analysis of the evolving threat landscape, First-Person View (FPV) drones—known for their speed, agility, and resistance to conventional small-arms engagement—have been incorporated into ALKA’s target set. As a result, our country has acquired a critical defence capability against kamikaze FPV drones, which represent a growing and asymmetric terrorist threat.

What are the latest developments related to the Tayfun, Kara Atmaca, SUNGUR Air Defence Missile System, the LEVENT Close Air-Defence System, the National Vertical Launcher System (MIDLAS) and the Tactical Missile Launch System KMC?

TAYFUN Missile: We introduced the BLOCK-4 Hypersonic version of our TAYFUN missile, which holds the title of Türkiye's longest-range and domestically produced ballistic missile, to the world at the IDEF 2025 International Defence Industry Fair in Istanbul. While the serial production and deliveries of the systems we previously developed in our TAYFUN project are ongoing, our BLOCK-4 missile is currently the heaviest, largest, and fastest missile in the TAYFUN series. The development and testing phases of TAYFUN BLOCK-4 are currently underway.

TAYFUN is a broad missile family and will continue to expand. We will grow this family by developing new versions of TAYFUN, both in terms of warhead variety and the diversity of missions to be undertaken.

KARA ATMACA Surface-To-Surface Cruise Missile: KARA ATMACA is a customized and extended-range variant of our ATMACA Anti-Ship Missile for use against stationary ground targets. While the firing tests of the KARA ATMACA are ongoing, we aim to begin serial production and delivery processes very soon. On the other hand, we are simultaneously continuing our development work on different variants of the system.

LEVENT Close-In Air Defence System: LEVENT, which will also be a part of Steel Dome, was developed for the close-range air defence of our naval platforms. LEVENT successfully completed a critical milestone by striking and neutralizing the target aircraft during the live-fire test conducted in November 2025.We will soon deliver LEVENT to the Turkish Armed Forces, making our navy even stronger.

MİDLAS National Vertical Launcher System: MİDLAS is a domestically developed and modular vertical launch system for naval platforms of Türkiye. We have integrated this system, which enables the strategic and tactical use of air defence and cruise-guided missiles with different ranges and mission profiles (Hisar-D RF, Siper Block 1-D, ATMACA, etc.) from the same platform, into some MİLGEM I/Istif Class Frigates in the Turkish Navy. On the other hand, our activities aimed at exporting it to friendly and brotherly countries continue.

Tactical Missile Weapon System KMC-U: KMC-U offers both stationary and on-the-move attack capability with its high mobility, stabilized turret system featuring 360° rotation, and in-vehicle control functionality. Our KMC-U Tactical Missile Weapon Systems, which began entering the inventory of our Land Forces since 2020, have been developed for use in missions requiring high control, rapid response, and effective firepower in the field, and stand out as a weapon system suitable for modern combat needs. In addition to KMC-U, our Tactical Missile Weapon System, which has the capability to integrate with different platforms, can launch many different types of missiles from various manned and unmanned land and sea platforms.

SUNGUR Air Defence Missile System: SUNGUR is Türkiye's first domestically developed MANPADS air defence missile system, effective against very low and low-altitude targets with a range of 8 km and an altitude capability of 4 km. In addition to its portable structure, it offers a flexible and wide range of applications thanks to its integration into manned and unmanned land, air, and sea platforms. With its range, altitude, speed, and guidance characteristics, this system, which has superior performance compared to its counterparts, has been added to the inventory of the Turkish Armed Forces since 2022. SUNGUR also has strong export potential in the international market.