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Canada’s ambassador tours ASELSAN as defense ties thaw
Marcel Lebleu, Canada’s new ambassador to Türkiye, visited Turkish defense electronics maker ASELSAN after touring Baykar, as Ottawa and Ankara move past a dispute over drone optics.
Marcel Lebleu, who became Canada’s ambassador to Türkiye in July, visited ASELSAN, the country’s largest defense electronics company. A photo released from the visit shows company executives presenting the ambassador with a commemorative plaque.
The visit followed Lebleu’s Oct. 13 tour of drone maker Baykar’s technology center in Istanbul, where he was given a model of the Kizilelma unmanned fighter jet.
Why the visits matter
Ottawa halted exports of drone optics to Türkiye after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and, in April 2021, cancelled 29 export permits, including for the L3Harris Wescam cameras fitted to Bayraktar TB2 drones. Türkiye responded by switching the TB2 to ASELSAN’s homegrown CATS electro-optical system.
Canada lifted the restrictions in January 2024, shortly after Türkiye ratified Sweden’s NATO accession, saying permits would be reviewed case by case. Canadian disarmament group Project Ploughshares has since reported, based on trade data, Wescam sensor transfers to Türkiye worth as much as $123 million from summer 2024 to early 2025.
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