Defense industry cooperation between Türkiye and Egypt has reached a new stage in the field of unmanned systems.
HAVELSAN signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Egypt's state-controlled Arab Industrialization Organization (AOI) for the joint production of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles. Within the scope of the agreement, it is aimed to assemble and jointly produce UAVs in Egypt, thus improving the country's local production capacity.
One of the concrete outcomes of the collaboration was HAMZA-1. The platform was shown to the public for the first time at the EDEX defense fair held in Cairo in December 2025. Anadolu Agency reported that HAMZA-1 is a UAV capable of vertical takeoff and landing and that it emerged within the scope of local cooperation in Egypt.
The most striking detail in terms of the technical origin of HAMZA-1 is the platform's connection with HAVELSAN BOZBEY. According to Janes' review at EDEX 2025, the UAV exhibited at the AOI stand under the name HAMZA-1 matches HAVELSAN's BOZBEY platform. According to the source BOZBEY; It is a fixed-wing reconnaissance-surveillance UAV with vertical take-off and landing capabilities and can reach a maximum take-off weight of 40 kilograms with a payload of 15 kilograms.
According to HAVELSAN's own data, BOZBEY; It has a payload of 3 kilograms, a cruising speed of 80-85 km/h and an airborne endurance of up to 6 hours. While the platform has an electro-optical/infrared laser rangefinder camera system, it also includes capabilities such as fully autonomous flight, target detection and tracking, GNSS independent mission and autonomous return home when the data connection is interrupted.
Therefore, the HAMZA-1 project is important in terms of transporting a platform family developed by HAVELSAN to Egypt with a local production model, rather than just selling a ready-made UAV from Turkey to Egypt.
Over the years, HAVELSAN has developed autonomous UAVs with different mission concepts such as BAHA, BULUT and BOZBEY. During the development of these platforms, a significant technology accumulation was created in areas such as autonomous flight, mission planning, sensor integration, communication, GNSS independent operation and joint operation with different unmanned systems.
For example, BAHA has a maximum takeoff weight of 28 kilograms, a payload of 2 kilograms, a data connection of up to 50 kilometers and an airborne endurance of up to 2 hours. Platform; It can perform tasks such as vertical take-off and landing, under-cloud operations, day and night reconnaissance and surveillance, and integration of different sensors.
BULUT, on the other hand, stands out as a platform developed for longer-term missions that can stay in the air for up to 6 hours with its internal combustion engine and perform reconnaissance and surveillance independent of GNSS.
Transferring the engineering and software experience gained on these platforms to the joint production model in Egypt constitutes the basic technology transfer dimension behind HAMZA-1.
The agreement between HAVELSAN and AOI envisages assembly and joint production in Egypt. HAVELSAN General Manager Mehmet Akif Nacar announced that the partnership will increase local production capacity while bringing autonomous UAV technologies to the region and will play an important role in entering the African market.
AOI President Major General Muhtar Abdullatif stated that combining HAVELSAN's technology experience with AOI's production capability will contribute to Egypt's technological independence and sustainable export goals.
This model, unlike a classical export agreement, progresses on the axis of local production + technology cooperation + regional export.
HAVELSAN's positioning of Egypt also increases the strategic importance of the project. The company sees Egypt as a gateway to Africa. Şevket Ünal, Deputy General Manager of HAVELSAN International Business Development and Marketing, said in his statement at EDEX 2025 that the products to be produced in Egypt are expected to be offered to the countries in the region.
In this context, HAMZA-1 is aimed not only to be a platform for the needs of the Egyptian security forces, but also to become a part of the joint production and export model for African and Arab countries in the future.
The model that Turkey has followed in defense industry exports in recent years is increasingly expanding from platform sales alone to local production and technology partnerships. HAVELSAN-Egypt cooperation is one of the remarkable examples of this. While Turkey's engineering know-how in UAV technologies is brought together with Egypt's production infrastructure, HAMZA-1 stands out as one of the first visible products of this model in the field.
On the other hand, cooperation between the two countries is not limited to aircraft only. An agreement was also signed between HAVELSAN and AOI's Kader Factory for the joint production of unmanned ground vehicles, and the 6×6 unmanned land vehicle named AKREP and HAMZA-1 were exhibited together at EDEX 2025.
