Diplomacy

The 2026 Summit of the presidents and prime ministers of NATO countries is scheduled to take place at the presidential complex in Ankara on 7 and 8 July. The decision to hold the summit in Turkiye was taken at the last NATO summit in The Hague in 2025. At the time people assumed that although having the summit in Turkiye is symbolic, and will help consolidate the membership of that country in NATO, the Ankara summit will simply be a glorified photo-opportunity. It is clear now that things will work out differently. The Ankara summit will define NATO for the next decade, and preparations are on the way, seriously and in earnest. Two reasons are contributing to this: the first is  the acute situation in the international system, caused by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the US-Israeli war on Iran and the crisis it has created in the Gulf, and Donald Trump’s disregard, even disdain, for the US traditional allies in Europe, and even for NATO itself. The second reason why the Ankara summit has become so important is that the Turks, as hosts, are determined to use the event to push some key issues that NATO has been avoiding for some time, including how the alliance engages with its southern neighbourhood. Turmoil in the international system have raised questions of how the NATO alliance can look in the future. As hosts of the Ankara summit, the Turks embraced these three challenges. As Ilker Sezer puts it in Turkiye Today, “For all of its complex balancing acts, NATO remains on of the most critical pillars of Turkiye’s own national security, whether you like it or not” Speaking a few days ago in an interview on al Jazeera, Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, said that NATO’s biggest achievement since its creation was not its power of deterrence, but rather the fact that it had stopped different European countries from fighting with each other, and instead co-operate together for mutual defence. Given European history up to WWII it is difficult to disagree with him. As Levant Kemal, also argues on Turkiye Today, “As the global landscape shifts, this summit offers Ankara a significant opportunity to act as a visionary host in shaping NATO’s future trajectory”  (click image to read full Monday Commentary)