Canadian supplier to Turkey’s Bayraktar Drones goes bankrupt following embargo

Canadian firm Telemus Systems Inc. has gone bankrupt after it had to stop supplying military equipment components to Turkey following the Ottawa’s embargo on defense exports to Turkey.

Canada suspended export licenses to Turkey in 2019 during Turkish military incursion into northeastern Syria. Restrictions were then eased but re-imposed during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in October 2020 when it was found that Azerbaijan, backed by Ankara, was using drones equipped with imaging and targeting systems manufactured by L3Harris Webcam, the Canada-based unit of L3Harris Technologies

In April 2021, Canada scrapped the export of drone technology to Turkey after it confirmed that some of the Canadian-made systems had been used in Syria and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The parts under embargo include camera systems fitted on popular Turkish combat drones including Bayraktar TB2 and Anka UAVs.