NATO Summit in Ankara: Turkey Positions Itself as an Indispensable Power in the Alliance

Turkey has the second-largest army in the alliance after the USA and has been a NATO member since 1952. The last NATO summit on Turkish soil was 22 years ago. NATO already uses three Turkish military bases, and by 2028 a multinational NATO command for land forces is to be established in Adana, along with a maritime hub in Istanbul.

Erdogan's Demands of the Alliance

According to the alliance's account, Erdogan is pursuing the goal of seeing Turkey recognized as an irreplaceable pillar of the alliance, achieving an end to sanctions, gaining access to all weapons funds, and having the country's security interests respected. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan described transatlantic relations as a strategic necessity and the summit as a historic opportunity to strengthen NATO unity.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced that new arms contracts worth several tens of billions of dollars would be presented at the summit. Rutte praised the revolution of Turkey's arms industry. He told the press at the end of May: "Die Türkei wird eine beeindruckende Show abliefern." Turkey has developed within three decades from a state almost entirely dependent on arms imports into a global arms exporter whose product range extends from artillery munitions to armored vehicles to drones.

Turkey's arms export industry is estimated at ten billion US dollars; 56 percent of exports now go to Western states. Spain procures training fighter jets from Turkey, Romania orders patrol boats, Poland, Albania, and Croatia have ordered combat drones, and Germany has expressed interest in Turkish weapons. Ukraine also uses the Bayraktar TB2 drone, manufactured by Baykar, which is headed by Erdogan's son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar.

Rapprochement with Washington

According to Erdogan, European security can no longer be conceived without Turkey. Last autumn, Europeans approved the sale of Eurofighter jets to Ankara. In the past week, US President Donald Trump fueled new hopes for Turkey's return to the F-35 program. Trump said: "Er ist ein starkes Nato-Mitglied. Ich werde wahrscheinlich etwas tun, das ihn sehr freuen wird" and stated that he was attending the summit "nur aus Respekt für Präsident Erdoğan." The USA is also examining the delivery of engines for the Turkish fighter jet Kaan.

Relations between Ankara and Washington were strained for years because Turkey had purchased Russian S-400 air defense systems. The USA subsequently excluded Turkey from the F-35 program and temporarily restricted major arms deliveries. According to a report by the news agency Bloomberg, Erdogan asked Putin in December 2025 to take back the S-400 systems, which Moscow denied. Turkey does not apply the sanctions against Moscow in the Ukraine war and serves as a hub for circumventing them.

Geostrategic Key Role

In March of this year, NATO air defense shot down four Iranian ballistic missiles heading toward Turkey after Iranian missiles had struck Turkish territory at the start of the war against Iran. NATO subsequently reinforced air and missile defense in southeastern Turkey. Turkey also controls the straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles and can thus limit Russian maritime striking power in the Black Sea.

Turkey has in the past blocked NATO defense plans for Eastern Europe and delayed the NATO accession of Sweden and Finland with a veto. As early as 2009, it opposed the appointment of Danish politician Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO Secretary General because a Danish newspaper had published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. Giorgia Meloni, Italy's head of government, is also among the participants; Italy, along with other European states, had not made military bases available for US attacks on Iran.

Drones and Arms Exports as a Showpiece

Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar is the global market leader in its field. Turkey ranks eleventh among weapons producers worldwide and is aiming for a place in the top ten. Erdogan also announced a mega rail connection between Turkey and Saudi Arabia through Jordan and Syria after a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and a global oil crisis had occurred. In parallel, Turkey is building an underground fuel pipeline that is to be integrated into a NATO infrastructure project worth 28 billion US dollars.

Turkish arms expert and director of the Austrian Institute for International Politics (oiip), Cengiz Günay, also sees the summit as a signal domestically: "Es ist ein Zeichen nach innen, an die eigene Bevölkerung: Schaut, wir spielen in der globalen Liga mit." At the same time, the meeting sends a message to neighbors such as Israel and Greece: "Und es ist eine Botschaft an die Nachbarn, die der Türkei nicht wohlgesonnen sind, etwa Israel oder Griechenland, dass man ein tragendes Mitglied der Allianz ist."

NATO members had also agreed on the goal of spending five percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2035. Trump had publicly criticized European NATO states for spending too little on their own defense. A former Islamist group long supported by Turkey is in power in Syria and, according to the report, has solved the Kurdish problem for Erdogan.