Turkey's new combat drone delivered to armed forces

Ankara, Aug 30 Turkey's domestically-produced combat drone, named Bayraktar Akinci, was delivered to the Turkish Armed Forces with a ceremony held in the northwestern province of Tekirdag.

Bayraktar Akinci, a high-altitude long-endurance combat unmanned aerial vehicle, has so far made more than 870 sorties in test flights and hit its targets with "full accuracy", the state-run Anadolu agency said.

The vehicle features a wingspan of 20 metres and is reportedly among the largest Turkish drones currently in production, Xinhua news agency quoted Anadolu as saying.

It is also capable of conducting intelligence gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

"With our combat unmanned aerial vehicle Akinci, Turkey has become one of the three most advanced countries in the world in this technology," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the ceremony.

Erdogan also said that the country's goal is to "develop armed drones that can take off and land on aircraft carriers with short runways for use in missions abroad".