NATO’s leaders left the Ankara summit with guns and live ammunition gifted to them by Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But not everybody could take their present home.
Published On 9 Jul 20269 Jul 2026
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ANKARA, Turkey — President Trump said on Tuesday that the U.S. will lift sanctions on Turkey that were issued after Ankara purchased a Russian missile defense system that led to the country being kicked out of the F-35 fighter jet program.
There are still a number of legal hurdles before Turkey could be fully admitted back to the U.S. program, but the removal of the sanctions — issued under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act — would help ease the process for Ankara to regain access to the F-35s, a top goal of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and one that Trump has predicted for some time would occur.
“We’re going to be taking the sanctions off, OK?” Trump said in response to a question during a meeting with Erdogan at the presidential palace in Ankara. He said Cabinet officials were working on the matter. Earlier in the meeting, he said the possibility of selling the F-35s to Turkey is “certainly something we will consider.”
Trump and Erdogan repeatedly underscored their warm relationship as they met soon after the U.S. president arrived in Ankara for the NATO summit. Erdogan greeted the U.S. president with an elaborate welcome ceremony involving cannons, military officials on horseback and jets flying overhead emitting red, white and blue smoke.
“Sometimes you get along with the toughest people, like him,” Trump said, gesturing to Erdogan. The U.S. president repeatedly praised Turkey for its loyalty to the U.S., particularly during the war in Iran.
Trump, who has often upended NATO gatherings with complaints that European allies did not spend enough on defense, had said he would not have attended this year’s summit had it not been for his close ties with Erdogan.
Earlier in the day, NATO showcased a series of military projects worth billions of dollars — an investment that the alliance’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, called “money well spent.”
An energized Rutte was speaking to government ministers and defense industry officials at a forum billed as NATO’s “big reveal,” to the thrum of techno music and a slick video display.
NATO as an organization does not own any weapons — these are the property of the 32 member countries — but it does have a fleet of 14 AWACS early warning radar surveillance planes that are about 50 years old, along with some newer surveillance drones.
A deal to replace the aging planes was announced Tuesday. Swedish manufacturer Saab will be supplying up to 10 new GlobalEye surveillance aircraft for a 10-nation consortium, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced.
“It’s a moment of great pride,” he said, noting that the twin-engine aircraft would be “made within the alliance for all the alliance.”
Some of the projects will be paid for with funds from a system of cheap loans for defense purposes set up by the European Union, comprising up to $170 billion raised on capital markets.
“We need to ensure that we are translating our economic might into military capabilities, putting the cash to work from defense plans to drones, from money to missiles and interceptors,” Rutte said.
Trump has branded NATO a “paper tiger” that would cease to function without American arms and leadership. At the forum on Tuesday, Michael Duffy, a U.S. undersecretary of defense, said “the reality is that we need production increases across the board.”
“We will be looking to increase our exports to those who are looking to buy our equipment, and we’ll also be looking to partner with the expansion of production capacity here in Europe,” he said.
Representatives from 15 nations shook hands and patted shoulders on a vast podium under the NATO logo as they announced a multinational effort to buy air-to-air refueling and transport planes from Airbus.
Then Rutte announced a four-country effort to purchase as many as five new Triton surveillance drones to add to NATO’s small fleet.
“It is genuinely made in NATO, and creating jobs on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.
Rutte told reporters on the eve of the military alliance’s two-day summit in Turkey that “we will announce tens of billions in new contracts that will provide the crucial kit we need to deter and defend.”
However, at Tuesday’s event, no dollar figures were given and the display included some projects long since agreed.
The defense industry splash comes a few weeks after Rutte tried to ease U.S. concerns about military spending at NATO with a new pitch using a chart labeled “The Trump Trillion” — showing $1.2 trillion in spending by European allies and Canada since 2017.
Trump appeared unmoved, saying he was still disappointed at some NATO allies’ refusal to join the Iran war, which he had launched alongside Israel without consulting them.
“We don’t need their money — we don’t need anything,” Trump said. “I just want loyalty.”
The summit is being held in Erdogan’s sprawling palace compound in Ankara, and Trump has suggested he would come bearing gifts for the Turkish leader.
Turkey was barred from the F-35 fighter jet program in 2019 after it purchased Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems. When asked about the fate of Turkey’s return to the F-35 system, Trump said as he sat next to Erdogan that “it’s certainly something we will consider.
Speaking Monday on the morning show “Fox & Friends,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the U.S. not to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, saying that Erdogan “calls openly for the annihilation of Israel.”
Turkey and Israel have acrimonious relations. Erdogan frequently accuses Israel of committing genocide in its war in Gaza, triggered by the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
Netanyahu said selling Turkey F-35s would “upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority and also, I think, by America’s posture in the Middle East.”
Turkey beefed up security and banned protests in Ankara during the summit, but a small group of demonstrators gathered on Tuesday in the capital. They were quickly surrounded by police, and a legal association said 22 students affiliated with the leftist Turkish Workers Party and three lawyers had been detained.
The Pentagon wants a reboot and is promoting what it calls “NATO 3.0,” a vision of the alliance in which Europe assumes greater responsibility for its own defense, freeing the U.S. to concentrate on other priorities.
But hiking defense spending means increasing taxes or diverting resources from other priorities. U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey unexpectedly quit last month, saying the British government was not willing to spend at a time of rising threats.
Separately on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a fresh appeal for his country to be allowed to join the alliance, saying its armed forces are highly experienced and resilient would only boost the alliance’s defense capabilities.
He highlighted Ukraine’s adaptability and its ability to strike deep inside Russia, hit oil refineries and other energy targets. He said that Ukraine’s armed forces are “eliminating” on average 30,000 Russian troops every month.
“Frankly we take no pride in this,” Zelensky said, noting that the war with Russia — now in its fifth year — is “a war we did not seek but one we are forced to fight.”
Concern is mounting among some northern and central eastern countries that Russia might be preparing a hybrid attack — a combination of conventional warfare with tactics like cyberattacks — on the continent as Russian President Vladimir Putin struggles to secure victory in Ukraine.
Cook, Fraser, Sewell and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writers Jill Lawless in London and Andy Wilks in Istanbul contributed to this report.
Turkish president meets NATO chief as Kyiv asks Ankara to host a leaders’ level meeting with Russia.
Published On 22 Apr 202622 Apr 2026
Turkiye is making efforts to revive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and bring together the leaders of the warring sides, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
Ankara has maintained good ties with both sides since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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Erdogan and Rutte met in the Turkish capital Ankara, the Turkish presidency said on Wednesday.
“Erdogan said we were engaged, as Turkiye, for the Ukraine-Russia war to end with peace, and that we are working to revive negotiations and start talks at leaders’ level,” the presidency said in a readout of the meeting.
The Turkish president also told Rutte that maintaining transatlantic ties was “indispensable”, but that Ankara expected European NATO allies to take more responsibility for transatlantic security, the presidency said.
Separately, Erdogan had a phone call with German Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Wednesday, informing him of Ankara’s efforts to achieve a lasting peace through talks in Ukraine, the presidency said.
Erdogan told the German leader that the US-Iran war was “starting to weaken Europe” and that the damage from the conflict would increase if world powers failed to intervene with “peace-oriented approaches”.
“Erdogan said Turkiye was working to end the Ukraine-Russia war through negotiations and reach lasting peace, just as it is trying with regards to Iran,” the presidency said in a statement after the phone call.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kyiv said it had asked Turkiye, a NATO member, to host a leaders’ level meeting with Russia.
“We asked the Turks about it, we asked some other capitals,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in comments to reporters on Tuesday that were cleared for release on Wednesday.
He added that Ukraine would be ready to consider any place other than Belarus or Russia for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long sought to try to hasten a resolution of the more than four-year war.
Meanwhile, Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin would be ready to meet his counterpart only for the purpose of finalising agreements on the conflict.
“The main thing is the goal of this meeting. Why should they meet? Putin has said he is ready for a meeting in Moscow at any moment,” the TASS news agency quoted Peskov as telling Russian state television.
“The main thing is that there should be a reason to meet, and the main thing is that the meeting should be productive. And it can only be for the purpose of finalising agreements.”