Ankara NATO Summit Seen as Chance to Reshape Alliance, Experts Say

A panel of experts in Washington on Thursday said Türkiye's growing strategic role within NATO could help redefine the alliance at its upcoming summit in Ankara, scheduled for July 7-8, marking the second time Türkiye hosts a NATO gathering after Istanbul in 2004.

The event, titled "The Turkish-American Alliance at the Heart of NATO's New Geopolitics," was organized by Türkiye's Directorate of Communications and the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) and moderated by Kadir Üstün, executive director of SETA in Washington.

Communications Director Burhanettin Duran delivered a video message at the panel. "In our 74-year journey with NATO, we have faced many challenges and difficulties. Each time, in keeping with the principle of mutual loyalty, we have managed to overcome these tests," Duran said. He called Türkiye "an indispensable central state in NATO's collective defense architecture" and said its hosting of the summit reflects "the spirit of the alliance and Türkiye's weight within it."

Cağrı Erhan, chief advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, framed the summit within a longer arc of alliance transformation. "As during the conditions in the early 1950s, the United States and Türkiye will play the leading role for this new era of transformation," he said. "The upcoming summit in Ankara will witness the first steps for the brilliant future ahead."

James Jeffrey, former U.S. ambassador to Türkiye and a Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute, said Türkiye has played a decisive role across every major security challenge in recent years. "Türkiye, along with the United States, has played the decisive role in all of the huge security issues over the past few years, from Ukraine through the Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Balkans and in the Middle East," he said. "Türkiye has done at least as much as the United States to secure the NATO realm, which extends, obviously, because it's Türkiye's borders, into the Middle East." He added that the summit "offers us a great opportunity, but it is only the capstone of ongoing conversations between Türkiye and the United States in a larger NATO context."

Rich Outzen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, pointed to growth in the U.S.-Turkish defense industrial relationship, including collaboration in maritime, shipbuilding, drones and artificial intelligence. "The new paradigm is Türkiye makes good enough stuff that there's actually U.S. companies that want to buy it," he said. Outzen called the U.S. and Türkiye "the engines of real hard power deterrence and real hard power capability for the alliance," adding that "the combination of combat experience, industrial capacity and an engineering capacity to put those things into the field is pretty hard to achieve." He acknowledged "some issues with NATO cohesion" and "some issues in the bilateral relationship" but said "the trend is good."

Roger Kangas, advisory board member at the Caspian Policy Center, said the Ankara summit could help NATO shed what he called "unintentional baggage" about its global role and refocus on core capabilities. He suggested Türkiye may need to serve as a bridge between diverging allies. "Türkiye may have to be the responsible adult in the room and bring some of these warring parties together ... and have them come to an agreement on how the organization can move forward," he said.