Oh that's "Apple doesn't do anything, even the screens are from Samsung" argument. I'm not going to drill on that but I think you are underestimating Turkey's capabilities.
Erdogan is just one dictator that is in free fall just like the economy he created. He probably wouldn't be around as a politician in few years.
Despite its troubles, Turkey is still a very rich and capable country. It does have an established manufacturing industry with expertise in many areas including aviation.
Thanks to the rise of anti-immigration sentiment and xenophobia in the west, Turkey's talent pool is not draining as fast as it could have.
Because of the lira going down to the drain, an Engineer in Turkey costs $800 to $3000 a month, depending on the seniority. Housing, food etc everything is also cheeper.
Turkey's GINI coefficient is horrible, which means the country does actually has capital concentration. The nationalistic sentiment and culturally obedient population makes it much more sustainable to spend money on military projects.
What Turkey lacks is advanced electronics but they are working on it. For example, the Canadian IR camera sensor that they no longer want to sell is to be replaced with indigenous one. Unfortunately, that one will be heavier and larger which would probably affect other aspects of the drones in question - like range and speed, probably.
We hired a Turkish software engineer recently, pay him a bit less than our American counterparts (which is a very good deal for someone in Turkey), and are very happy with the arrangement. He’s fantastic.
If you’re looking for remote engineers, don’t overlook Turkey.
has really turkey been spared from brain drain ? There are millions in germany and other european countries and i d wager they face much less hurdles than most other middleastern immigrants
The ones in Germany are different than the recent immigration. After the WW2 Germany required workforce and hundreds of thousands of Turks enlisted, other immigrated due to political reasons. The inventors of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine are the children of Turkish workers who made Germany their home.
The more recent immigration to EU, UK and the USA tends to be among the much more highly skilled.
The brain drain of Turkey is at all times high. Doctors, software developers, Engineers are fleeing in thousands. What I meant was, it could have been worse.
Turkey seem to be slowly replacing China in some parts of Africa - well, at least in Kenya and Somalia - as the source of most non-electronics merchandise sold from clothing to furniture. This is just from my observation with no proper sampling done. It also seem to be replacing India as a destination of affordable quality healthcare though at a much slower pace per my observation and mostly among Somalis not so much among Kenyans.
> What Turkey lacks is advanced electronics but they are working on it. For example, the Canadian IR camera sensor that they no longer want to sell is to be replaced with indigenous one. Unfortunately, that one will be heavier and larger which would probably affect other aspects of the drones in question - like range and speed, probably.
The point that Turkey doesn't have the technological capability sounds silly. Just look at number, Turkey is one of the biggest engineering powers out there, in rank with Koreans, and Japanese, and sometimes ahead of them when it comes to conventional heavy industry, and civil engineering.
Turkey has tons of engineers, and engineering companies. That's the hard fact.
Erdo had a run during his first two terms. Economic growth was tremendous. But he should have retired then. Trying to build a new ottoman empire, rejecting democracy and changing what made Turkey more successful than most Arabic countries - the strict separation of religion and state -, will end badly.
>Please enlighten us, what parts of the drone are Turkish
The design is Turkish, the software is Turkish and some parts are Turkish others are from suppliers from all over the world. If that's not clear enough, ask yourself what makes iPhone an American product. It's the IP, Suppliers can change.
That's why other countries are buying it from Turkey instead of ordering the parts from Alibaba and assemble. Why do you think that Armenians couldn't assemble their own "Turkish UAV" and use them against Azerbaijan? Didn't have screwdrivers to put together the parts?
About the whatabautism part of your question, Turks are indeed quite xenophobic. Yet, hosting so many refugees that makes about %5 to %10 of the country's population. If the USA hosted that many refugees, their number would have been from 16 million to 32 million. Turks are not happy about that, the latest polls show that about %80 of the Turks want the refugees gone.
Turks are not any less xenophobic that the Western nations, happy about that? The US elected Trump to get rid of the immigrants, EU got to the brink of collapse at the first million of Syrian. Turks might not be less xenophobic from the Westerners but they are resilient enough to take one for the team.
The poverty in Turkey has become rampant, the country does have a large number of poor people and rich people, the middle class with similar buying power to the western middle class has evaporated. So what? That's why Erdogan would be gone in a year or two. Erdogan is not taking the drones with him.
" ask yourself what makes iPhone an American product. "
That it was designed in the US and the product parts are build based on specifications developed by apple.
If an Italian buys a Mercedes and puts a Porsche engine in it, you may call it an "Italian car" but there is much less know how in it than is required to develop a car.
"Suppliers can change."
For complex items there are often few suppliers in the world. For some items there may be even only one.
I wouldn't underestimate or dismiss them. This is what happened with China, they were making ball point pens in the 80s and then after 40 years they sent a rover to Mars and threaten their neighbours in the South China Sea.
Turkey is involved in wars all over North Africa and the Caucaz region. They're paying for mercenaries fighting in Libya and are suplying one side with drones. They supplied Azerbaidjan with drones and mercenaries.
Don't equate Turks to Arabs. These guys do have a Turkish Hyundai, Ottocar and their country is quite well industrialized. Also, China is industrialized but not open, which is no reason to dismiss it, as it's currently exerting its influence in SE Asia and also worldwide to some degree. One of Erdogan's ambitions seems to be a new Ottoman Empire, something which does not fare well with Greece, the Balkans, most of Noth Africa and some countries in the Caucaz Region. That's also one of the reason Turkish attempts to join the EU will be met with opposition by Greece, Balkan EU states, along with Romania, Hungary. Here's a map for reference:
> Turkey does not have the expertise nor money to build this.
Heck, its pretty much what the US didn't have the combination of expertise and money to carry out with the UCLASS project, whose requirements got signficantly relaxed into an unmanned tanker with minimal combat capability project (CBARS) and produced the Boeing MQ-25.
And thanks to the American moral leadership with drones innocent people will not be bombed. /s oh wait the US just put the Whistleblower that showed most US drone attacks kill innocent people in prison for 4 years. Our moral standing in the world is in the gutter which is extremely sad. Don't expect Turkey to be even close to the US moral standard. We are heading to a very sad future.
Considering the lengths the US has gone to develop highly localized and targeted systems, like literally using knife missiles instead of bombs, your despair confuses me.
Using drone strikes actually leads to much fewer unintentional deaths than classical warfare. Boots on the ground not only lead to more direct casualties, but the knock of effects of the infrastructure disruption inevitably leads to orders of magnitude more beyond that. Targeted drone strikes, in terms of the ratio of unintended death to intended death are honestly better for everyone involved (except the target :P).
Only if they don’t also encourage drone warfare. The US used to be quite isolationist, but the capacity to kill people at zero risk somehow mysteriously morphed into the need to regularly assassinate people. Military targets inside countries we are at war with is one thing, but drones strikes are not nearly so limited.
You could argue that we were isolationist until we became the dominant world power. I wouldn’t say we’ve been isolationist since WWII— well before drones.
Honestly, you could argue that we’ve rarely been isolationist. We attacked Native American nations, then took over bits of the pacific, etc. We’ve been at war in some form or fashion for nearly all of our history.
I’m mostly libertarian and mostly pacifist, so I hope we change, but I’m not holding my breath.
The MQM-57 Falconer for example was doing battlefield reconnoissance in 1955. But, it’s far to say attaching weapon systems to drones rather than using the drone its self as a weapon was more recent.
Every weapon that provides an asymmetrical advantage does that. The problem is that weapons capability doesn’t stay asymmetrical forever. Once both sides have them in abundance they start being used in completely different ways that usually involve killing a lot more people indiscriminately.
Oh look now we killed just 65 wedding guests with our super-precise bombing instead of wiping out half a village (happened so many times in Iraq and Afghanistan due to poor intelligence and trigger-happy rednecks in chain of command).
US moral standard? What was that exactly? The firebombing of Japanese urban areas during WW2, or the dropping of 2 atomic bombs that killed and poisoned hundreds of thousands of civilians?
The trouble is that Turkey is a NATO member and there’re some rules on the weapons, turkey has already bought from Russia the S400 missile system and then they have been obliged from US (and NATO) to put them “offline”, so what’s the point in announcing a new drone to fight the F35 from NATO? Just the usual defiance from Erdogan?
> turkey has already bought from Russia the S400 missile system and then they have been obliged from US (and NATO) to put them “offline”, so what’s the point in announcing a new drone to fight the F35 from NATO? Just the usual defiance from Erdogan?
The last sentence is true.
On the S400 matter cited many times through this thread: Turkey only bought S400 after trying for more than a decade to get any missile defence option from anybody, including Americans themselves (they did not agree to sell them MIM 104F *,) French, Germans (both French, and German deals were sank under US pressure,) Taiwanese, Chinese, Indians, and Israelis.
* USA warmed up to selling Patriot to Turkey few years ago, but that ship has long sailed, with S400 deal being inked years prior.
Turkey, be them a wayward ally, but their feelings of being constantly wronged by the USA, NATO, and EU, and not being truly treated as a peer are fully genuine.
So, yes. They do this to slight USA, just like they bought S400 to punish USA after them really being trolled, for the lack of a better word, by 3 US presidents, along with NATO EU allies.
Good points. But the story probably isn't complete without mentioning how Erdogan has transformed Turkey from a secular democracy to an islamic something?
> Good points. But the story probably isn't complete without mentioning how Erdogan has transformed Turkey from a secular democracy to an islamic something?
And it did so after a decade of trying to get Turkey into EU, while he still had an image of a popular, liberal, progressive, more European minded leader, and possibly even been such to some extend, before he crossed the red lines.
Back then, French blocked every attempt of their accession on a complete pie in the sky grounds, because they didn't like Turkey for them competing with them for influence in Africa, and Arab world. This was at the time when even Greeks agreed to greenlight Turkey's accession
Now the ship has long sailed, relationship are more sour than ever, EU really needs Turkey on its side more than ever, and they regret every second allowing Sarkozy pulling his shenanigans.
This truly could have been avoided if EU was able to police its wayward leaders better.
from ec.europa.eu: "Accession negotiations started in 2005, but until Turkey agrees to apply the Additional Protocol of the Ankara Association Agreement to Cyprus, eight negotiation chapters will not be opened and no chapter will be provisionally closed."
Yes, but even Cyprus wasn't an iron wall back then. Turkey signalled many times that they will do Cyprus, they had numerous talks over it, and French signalled they will not let them in anyways.
Guessing from your username, you must be coming from a close neighbour of Turkey.
Consider Turkey's politics:
It's 2003 and RTG comes to power on a gazillion of promises with a historic election victory of a party which wasn't part of Turkish L'Ancien Régime for the first time ever.
The party is nominally Islamist, but of a garden variety. Essentially they are a party of rural Turkey, and they try hard to put something on the table in urban areas. What they put on the table was EU accession.
For a first time, everything goes almost too good to be true. Economy is booming, population is euphoric. The EU accession protocol was initiated, Turkey does a lot of reforms, and concessions to EU. Even the impasse with Greece gets seemingly close to resolution.
And then... as if somebody slams the lid on the piano. Sarkozy pops up like a genie out of a bottle, and a tectonic shift starts in Europe. Then 2008. Then troubles on the Southern border. And then the Lira flies.
RTG now has to choose way for survival for his himself, and his party. He considers what he can still sell to the electorate.
To keep banging his head at EU's door, knowing that the this door will be closed for the foreseeable future, and that pro-EU electorate will leave him, that it's an increasingly unpopular with his core electorate, and that this is a near certain losing move, or do a 180°, and turn towards increasingly more loud whispers in his core electorate of turning towards "proper Islamisms," and overall more hardcore right politics — something which sustained previous regimes in Turkey without fail (or at least did until the next military coup.)
This is how I see it.
Greece really had no better option than to bury the past conflict with Turkey back then.
There are obviously good reasons why Turkey is being denied access to advanced anti aircraft systems from NATO, its current government is growing more and more aggressive with its neighbours even if they are also NATO members and at the same time they cosy up with Russia at times while turning from the most secular Muslim country into a theocracy.
There might be debate over whether Turkish drones “won” two of them, and the third (Turkey’s ongoing war with domestic Kurdish insurgents) hasn’t been won at all, much less by Turkish drones.
The causality is backwards here. He achieved his position first, became the CTO of probably the most important Turkish tech company and then met Erdoğan's daughter.
It's probably inconceivable from a Western perspective.
Samo Burja has an interesting clip where he talks about the succession problem, and briefly mentions the Japanese practice of adopting someone by getting them to marry your daughter. He also talks about how this would not work in modern day America.
Yes, this truly doesn't tell anything about Turkey having very robust tech industry, and legions of very qualified engineers, many times the number of other countries their size.
Be him Erdo's in law, or not will not make any difference to Turkey having many other equally well performing heavy industry, and military hardware companies.
This is very distracting from the serious conversation when everybody keeps calling out one man's family status, having no bearing whatsoever on the wider industry as a whole, as a sole thing worth talking about Turkish industry.
Also, they don't actually build the thing themselves but rather buy all the parts. Not that any of it matters on the battlefield. Certainly not to their current enemies. They get blown just the same
I was under the impression that western suppliers stopped exporting to Turkey after the Artsakh "conflict" so that they now manufacture most parts themselves (reverse-engineered or not)
Normally, that's a recipe for cronyism(like with the other relatives of Erdogan) however in the case on that son-in-law, the situation is not so bleak, at least for Turkey.
The guy graduated from Robert College, which is an American established school in Istanbul with a historically exceptional education and high standards to get in. Later he graduated from Istanbul Technical University, which is 250 years old ivy league university, one of the best in Turkey - again high requirements to get in and famous for being hard to graduate.
Then he receives scholarship from University of Pensilvania for his masters degree. The next school is MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) where he works on autonomous, aggressive maneuvering of Unmanned Helicopter Systems.
His father is an industrialist(Also an Engineer, who studied at METU - the other prestigious University in Turkey, which is founded with help from the USA), the founder of Baykar. After his studies he becomes the CTO of his fathers company, which again raises red flags but under his watch the company actually gets transformed into one of the leading companies in military UAV.
Later in 2016, he married Erdogan's daughter. A strategic marriage? Who knows, but that's way after he becomes an accomplished engineer.
There are early videos of him workings his ass off as if he is in a SV company. When Turkey fails procure foreign made UAVs, Turkey partners with Baykar and the guy actually works on his R&D in the remote parts of the country at the front lines together with the military personel.
When Turkey engaged in military actions in the past years, these drones actually proved to be very effective. Numerous Russian-made air defence systems were destroyed, making the headlines for being first.
Although I feel uneasy using this word for situation where human beings were killed, there was a constant feed on r/combatfootage of spectacular Bayraktar UAV footage engaging with enemy targets.
BTW, I find the guys political positions very repulsive. He tried to help his father in law during the elections and all his statements were hostile and divisive as of those of right wing extremists. Maybe he should focus on the engineering and get over all that Erdogan's son in law thing.
Also, I need to point out that he is not in charge of Turkey's drone R&D but CTO of only one of the companies. There are multiple UAV developers, private and state owned companies that has nothing to do with Bayraktar. They do higher end stuff or other kind of drones like kamikaze drones.
Turkey enjoys some rather strong technical talent in Ankara, the capital, where some of the best schools in the country are located. Ankara, having comparatively small population to Istanbul(6M vs 15M) doesn't have the best career opportunities as Istanbul makes it a hot stpot for hiring for the defence industry.
Unfortunately, due to the political situation in Turkey, a lot of talent is fleeing abroad. Last year it made it to the news when the Dutch ASML hired from the Turkish defence industry en mass.
I dislike Erdogan more than the next guy, but I wouldn't mind this son in law taking more power among them. But I would imagine, he stays away from politics...which is a smart move actually.
> However, there are other US Senators who view Turkey as an important NATO ally. One such lawmaker is Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state for political affairs..."
This sounds very much right. Turkey's biggest problem with US, is that it doesn't know what trouble the Americans have with them. Every few years US politicians put something new on the table, and say it's a (new) problem.
Turkey is the biggest military ally USA have. Loosing it will be a "before, and after" moment for NATO.
Truly, USA's biggest problem with Turkey is exactly them being such a strong, and prominent military ally, throwing discord in US dominated bloc solely by the fact of its existence.
Points:
1. Turkey's ultimate political alignment is NATO
2. Turkey's current political position can be rationally understood, in comparison to more irate allies, playing their double, triple, quadruple games. It has tensions with NATO, and US, but not because its ultimate alignment, and commitment to Atlantic Bloc changed.
3. Turkey is a way more useful military ally US have than any EU NATO member. Both in military strength, and level of commitment.
4. Turkey is the sole country US can consider a real military ally among dozens of "ally" countries which USA buys with billions of dollars per year in defence aid: Saudis, Egyptians, Emiratis, Pakistanis, Jordanians, Israelis... they are all basically a $100B a year black hole for defence aid.
5. Turkey is the only non-white country with commitment to hosting American nuclear weapons, and other serious defence assets after South Korea, and Japan quit. This is currently American's sole proof of not seeking a "rich white world alliance" as its foreign policy vision — hugely symbolic.
All of those points are valid, but the democratic status of Turkey is questionable (not a barrier to being a US ally) and it has a long-standing unresolved territorial dispute with another NATO member, Greece.
The US throws a lot of money at the middle east because it doesn't understand it at all and has no coherent plan. Fortunately some of the money is thrown back at individual politicians.
Those numbers sound big until you realise the overwhelming majority of that personnel are conscripts who will be very inexperienced and in all likelihood don't actually want to be there - from the wikipedia page you were on:
> in 2010 the Turkish Armed Forces had an active strength of around 402,000 active personnel, consisting of 77,000 professionals and 325,000 conscripts
Don't get me wrong, I'd be delighted if the roles were reversed and it was instead Turkey who had the 5th biggest military expenditures in the world and the UK were around 20th - there's far more productive things we could be spending our money on.
> Those numbers sound big until you realise the overwhelming majority of that personnel are conscripts who will be very inexperienced and in all likelihood don't actually want to be there - from the wikipedia page you were on:
Conscript training is still better than no training at all.
In case of a serious military conflict, no NATO country other than USA will be able to avoid some degree of popular mobilisation.
Alright man, if you really wanna believe that the strongest military ally of the USA is Turkey then I'm not gonna stop you. But you're wrong, and really you shouldn't want to be right - it's not a good thing. I am a little embarrassed about the UK/US relationship
1. With Erdogan, or without Erdogan, it's very unlikely Turkey will ever find any solace with anybody South, or East of their border. The article 5 will remain central to its defence if anything nasty comes up from the South, and the only option if Russia will attack them from the East.
2. Turkey will gain nothing from changing alignment to some distant foreign power.
It is already a strong military power, and it barely ventured past their immediate vicinity in Syria. It cannot really confront Greece, with foreign power backing, or not, because of NATO.
3. The West will continue tolerate Turkey because they really have no alternative to Turkey, and vice-versa.
If US needs allies so desperately that as a claimed leader of democracy is willing to ignore dictatorship regime, cronism within ruling family (I don't mean the guy responsible for this program but all the rest), semi-open support for ISIS in recent past (buying oil, treating wounded, supporting arms), massive human rights violations, atrocities against kurdish population, invasion of sovereign state(s) without any reason and generally huge misalignment of core values and mentality between US and Turkey, then I'd say... US is pretty fucked in near future and in very, very weak position.
Turkey is a major threat to basically all its neighbors, and if their greed will continue to rise (and there is no reason to think otherwise with current leadership), Europe should consider it as a bigger threat than Russia with Putin.
The relatively brief period when Turkey wanted to have peace with Europe is gone. I hope EU countries will realize that military spending needs to be increased and armies put back in good shape. It would be huge waste of money in other times but these days peace seems more and more fragile. Bullies only understand strength talk.
The EU kimd of screwed Türkiye. Turks took in 4 million syrian refugees and promised not to let them go to europe in exchange for billions of euros which were never delivered. Now Turkiye has had about 4 million syrian orisonwrs for 6 years and is about to absorb at least a million Afghanis.
Turks cant even visit the EU withoit showing their entire Cvs (notarized and translated), financial statements, proof of Turkish housing and proof of education.
Meanwhile westerners only have to use an app to get a $20 evisa.
The eu are incredibly hypocritical when it comes to Türkiye.
It wasnt so long ago that England tried to steal all of Turkiye, luckily ataturk whooped their colonial asses and sent them home with their limey tails between their legs.
> Turks cant even visit the EU withoit showing their entire Cvs (notarized and translated), financial statements, proof of Turkish housing and proof of education.
> Meanwhile westerners only have to use an app to get a $20 evisa.
They base this not on the drones but it's drone designed munitions, the MAM-L missile
Here is one of many videos of combat footage from the Ministry of Republic of Azerbaijan Defence channel, it is graphic of people dying - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUB3TLnpiWY
People claim it's the MAM-L, but I can't confirm.
One comment is Azerbaijan got a lot of footage because it uses drones, Armenia did not. The propaganda alone is interesting.
I'll say it again DARPA Subterranean Challenge is for urban warfare, because you can see in the videos they are running a MAM-L (I assume) into the bunker openings, subterranean is a solved problem. Cities are the only places left to hide.
I would not be underestimating Turkey's reach, but it's not "supersonic, stealth, 1.5 tons payload" if it's possible, it's continuing its cheap, light and willing to sell model.
If anyone recognises the missiles Azerbaijan are using in their videos are not Turkeys I'd be interested. Can you identify off the software or do drone operators use generic software?
How can one take this article seriously after the point on Azerbaijan using Turkish drones recently when in fact they also used Israeli Harop drones to great effect as well. Seems like the author is either ignorant or wants to create falsehoods by omission.
> after the point on Azerbaijan using Turkish drones recently
1. The article said "Turkey-backed Azerbaijani forces" which they were
2. The fact that they also used Israeli drones doesn't mean that Turkey didn't supply them with drones or that Turkey doesn't have drones, doesn't develop drones, or that Turkey doesn't want to be a player in umanned drones.
Azerbaijan used both Turkish and Israeli hardware. Probably others too.
But the Azerbaijan/Armenia conflict is widely seen as a proxy war between Turkey and Russia. Israel will sell their drones to (almost) anyone, and they haven't been seen as particularly decisive in this conflict.
The Turkish drones have very different strike capabilities that are much newer in this field.
It's disappointing to read the many comments here ignorant of the Turkish drone program.
I'm no fan of Erdoğan, but people should be aware that the Turkish military has put signifcant resources into drone based warfare over the last 10 years and is now one of the world leaders.
They are battle tested against peer-level opponents (Russian-backed Syrian government forces in Syria, and Russian backed opponents in Libya).
Erdoğan was recently busy throwing free tea to the crowds and random passers-by on the street to moralize them after people lost their houses to the fires. Dead serious.
Sultan Çayipp (google Erdogan Çay fires) has been investing all of the nation’s wealth into weapons research and construction.
Why? Kickbacks. Bro has his own Airbus A380, a 1,000 bedroom palace, and a suspicious amount of money for a third string middle class football player who has been a civil servant for 35 years.
I question that his son in law is the wünderkind people thinm he is. Çaydoğan’ own idiot son Bilal was supposedly a high performer at Berkeley but not a single person remembers him even attending the school.
Robert’s College, Bogacizi, itu, Galatasaray uni & lisesi.. pretty much every reputable turkish school, all 5 of them, can be bought.
There is a saying in Turkiye which translates roughly to, “explain it as if you are explaining it to Bulal”
With Jeffrey Epstein, MIT has shown to be corrupt and buyable.
Teadoğan’s son in law is the neo ottoman version of jared kushner and nothing more.
Well, it seems that you think the son in law is not actually successful and he bought his ticket into those places (MIT, Robert's College etc.).
Let's assume that he did (although I think it is BS), can you ignore the fact that the drones he is in charge of building are gaining advantages on battlefield?
With references you made in this post, I can clearly understand you are from Turkey or at least lived in Turkey for quite some time. But let me tell you something, your hate towards current rule of power in Turkey makes you so blind that you are striking everything that comes from it regardless of whether it is good or bad. FFS stop doing this or do it somewhere else. Do not shitpost here (reasonably high quality platform to discuss ideas) with references that nobody isn't interested in Turkey's daily politics are able to understand.
Drones, they were merely assembling them from suppliers, e.g. https://www.trtworld.com/turkey/suspending-drone-supply-to-t... or https://hetq.am/en/article/126227
I doubt that Turkey won three wars with drones, as mentioned in the thread here. But they helped at least win one battle (Azerbaijan).
Turkey is of tremendous geo-strategical importance but lacks technology, oil/gas and money.
- Big importer of Energy
- Huge trade balance deficit
- Currency in free-fall
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s image and Turkey’s economy are both taking a battering
https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/07/08/recep-tayyip-erd...
I think Erdo should focus on other things than trying to rebuild the Ottoman Empire.