TEHRAN -- Iran’s deputy defense minister says the country has reached self-sufficiency in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). “We have made great progress in the area of manufacturing drones and we owe these advances to more than four decades of incessant work and indefatigable efforts by our youths,” Afshin Khajeh-Fard, who also heads Iran Aviation Industries Organization, said on the sidelines of Russia’s MAKS 2021 aerospace exhibition in Moscow. “Today, we are self-sufficient in building drones from their fuselage to various subsystems and engines,” he added.