Following her meeting with President Trump, Prime Minister May has met with Turkey’s Erdogan to being develop new trading relationships, in light of the vote in 2016 to leave the European Union. The UK has signed a £100 million deal to design new fighter jets for Turkey (with Rolls-Royce poised to produce the engines). The announcement in Ankara yesterday means BAE Systems and Turkish Aerospace Industries have signed a “heads of agreement”, establishing a partnership for the development of the Turkish Fighter Programme or TF-X. Downing Street sources said the £100m contract has the potential to facilitate multibillion pound contracts between the UK and Turkish firms over the project’s 20-year lifetime.

After the coup last year, over 100,000 individuals have been purged from the Turkish bureaucracy and army. The Turkish Air Force does not currently have enough pilots to fill its current fleet of fighter jets. The country is increasing unstable, and a referendum is expected in the next few months, where Erdogan is seeking to create an executive presidency, with little to no oversight from Parliament or other branches of government.

Read More (Telegraph)>>
Read More (BBC)>>
Read more (The Guardian)>>