By Azernews

By News Center

Turkey's defence company ASELSAN’s General Manager Haluk Gorgun has dismissed as groundless the claims about the company’s sale to Qatar, Yeni Shafak has reported.

Gorgun made the remarks in response to reports with the above allegations recently circulated on the Turkish media.

He stated on his official Twitter account that the news published on the grounds that ASELSAN became a Qatari company did not reflect the truth and that a legal process was initiated against the unrealistic claims.

The general manager stressed that the aforementioned ASELSAN QSTP-B branch in Qatar is 100 percent owned by ASELSAN and was announced on the Public Disclosure Platform on January 19, 2021. He added that as a global Turkish company, ASELSAN operates in 12 different countries and exports products to 73 countries.

“It is wrong to wear out our national values; it is unfair to our nation. All our legal processes have been initiated against the untrue claims about ASELSAN and the news and posts made by citing these claims as a source,” Gorgun said.

He added that the company strictly cares about the protection of its name and brand and as an international company, registration procedures enable its branches to own its name.

"Our company, which operates in global markets, protects its name and brand, which it gave to the offices it opened abroad, with registration activities and does this as a routine practice,” Gorgun stressed.

The company also made a press release on the subject stating that ASELSAN, as a globalizing organization, had made registration applications for ASELSAN Ukraine, ASELSAN Pakistan, ASELSAN Qatar, and ASELSAN Katar MRO brands to protect the company’s brand and name rights within the scope of all its investments abroad.

"As a reliable defence and technology company in Qatar and the Gulf Region, we aim to create a sustainable human resource due to the growth in our activities, which we have been carrying out for many years, to support the increased operational capacity on-site and to offer our advanced technology defense solutions with our Maintenance, Repair, and Modernization Center and after-sales support,” the statement reads.

It added that the company carried out after-sales support activities in Azerbaijan with ASELSAN Baku Company, which has been operating in Azerbaijan for nearly 20 years.

“We are continuing our efforts to establish a Maintenance, Repair and Modernization Center of the same scope in Ukraine to continue our similar activities in the near future,” the company said.

It added that the ASELSAN Ukraine, ASELSAN Pakistan, and ASELSAN Katar MRO centers, which we have put into operation in 2021, continue their activities as 100 percent ASELSAN subsidiaries.

“No research and development activities and production are carried out in these centers, and they are structured in order to establish closer contact with the local customer, where after-sales services are carried out as specified,” the statement added.

It stressed that all disclosures regarding ASELSAN's domestic and international subsidiaries, capital, and shareholding structure are transparently disclosed to the public in the Annual Report published on the company’s website every year.

Defence Industry President Ismail Demir also answered the questions of journalists regarding the allegations that ASELSAN will be sold. “We are really surprised. This is again part of disinformation," he said.

The minister added that any speculation about this company will have really important and serious consequences and the company is legally obliged to report all actions to the Public Disclosure Platform.

“Our companies continue to work in the field of technology and defence industry. In the meantime, of course, they make partnerships. They set up various sub-companies. Its construction continues in various countries. They work as normal professional companies should work. That's what we're going to say about it," Demir said.