Turkey is not keen to accept an offer from the U.S. aircraft giant Boeing to cooperate on assembling Turkey's own regional passenger jet, Turkey’s transport minister has said.
Responding to a question regarding Turkey’s regional passenger jet at an international aviation fair in Istanbul on Thursday, Lütfi Elvan said production planning for the Turkey’s passenger jet was continuing and details would be announced within a month.
Emphasizing that Turkey wants to produce its own airplanes, Elvan said: "We have some conditions relating to domestic production as well as copyright issues. They need to be addressed.
"We can have a cooperation deal after all conditions have been met. We are not keen on the assembly suggestion made by Boeing."
Elvan said Turkish officials have been holding talks with 11 companies who were able to develop narrow-body aircrafts with capacities for 120 passengers or less.
During a visit to review an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) drone produced by a Turkish company, Elvan said the drones were produced completely through domestic technology which had been used in the Turkish Air Force for some time.
Elvan said: "Our companies constantly develop technologies. We have come to a critical threshold on UAVs. They are demanded by many countries.
"This is something we can be proud of. We will see far more developed UAV models from Turkish companies in the coming period."