Ankara summit will help shape NATO's future, Turkish foreign minister says

ANKARA: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Tuesday that the NATO summit in Ankara would play a role in determining the alliance’s future direction as members confront what he described as a more complicated security landscape.

In a post on X as the two-day meeting began, Fidan said Turkiye was ready to receive NATO allies under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership. He said the outcome of the gathering would go beyond dealing with immediate pressures and would influence the Euro-Atlantic security environment in the years ahead.

Fidan said NATO’s central task remains collective defence, but added that the strategic setting is changing as threats become more diverse, faster moving, and harder to manage across multiple domains. "The stage is set in Ankara. Under President Erdogan's leadership, Türkiye stands ready to welcome NATO members at a moment that will define the Alliance's future."

He said older yardsticks were no longer enough to assess current security needs and argued that greater importance should now be placed on deployable military capability, industrial strength, and operational preparedness. "Traditional metrics no longer capture this reality. What matters now is output: deployable capability, industrial capacity, and operational readiness."

The foreign minister also said Europe needed to contribute more strongly within NATO, while warning that restrictions affecting defence-industrial cooperation were reducing efficiency and delaying responses. He said such limits had turned into strategic disadvantages and maintained that European defence initiatives should stay open to all NATO allies.

"These constraints have become strategic liabilities. European defence initiatives must remain fully inclusive of all NATO Allies."

Fidan further said the alliance needed to review not only how it reacts to challenges but also how cooperation is structured. He said the Ankara summit would help guide NATO in adjusting its institutions and arrangements to match present-day realities.

"The real issue is not only how we respond, but how we organise cooperation in a way that reflects today's realities. The Ankara Summit will guide the Alliance in aligning its structures with the world it faces."

Setting out Turkiye’s position, Fidan said Ankara wanted an alliance that was more coordinated, more effective, and better able to withstand emerging challenges. "Türkiye's objective is clear: a more coherent, more capable, and more resilient Alliance."