Erdogan uses Turkey's NATO summit hosting to insulate domestic crackdown from Western pressure
Erdogan is deploying Turkey's hosting of the July 7-8 NATO summit in Ankara -- where US President Trump is expected -- as geopolitical cover for the government's legal campaign against the main opposition CHP, with Western governments privately opposing the proceedings but publicly confining Ankara visits to defence-sector briefings at firms such as TUSAS and ASELSAN. Ekrem Imamoglu remains detained; case files against CHP leader Ozgur Ozel from Istanbul and Antalya are reportedly being consolidated in Ankara, and a political atmosphere has formed where further moves against Ozel or Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas would be met with domestic resignation and muted Western response. DEVA leader Ali Babacan called the situation "very bitter for democracy"; on June 4, Ozel was photographed in a warm handshake with MHP's Devlet Bahceli at the Koc Group 100th anniversary gala, a moment analysts read as part of the same pressure dynamic in which Ozel faces prosecution or accommodation.
The July 7-8 NATO summit in Ankara -- at which US President Donald Trump is expected to appear -- has strengthened Turkey's strategic leverage at a moment when Western governments are preoccupied with multiple overlapping conflicts on Turkey's borders: the Russia-Ukraine war, the US-Israeli war against Iran, Israel's continuing operations in Lebanon and Gaza, and expected Armenian elections. Turkey's decade-long push toward defence autonomy, accelerated by its exclusion from the F-35 programme, has positioned Ankara as an indispensable NATO partner at a time when other allies are only now rediscovering the strategic autonomy concept Ankara adopted 10 to 15 years ago. The NATO summit will be only the second such gathering in Ankara's history, and the first held in a country simultaneously bordered by active conflicts on multiple fronts.
Erdogan is deploying this geopolitical importance to insulate the government's legal campaign against the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) from Western criticism. Ekrem Imamoglu remains detained. Case files against CHP leader Ozgur Ozel originating in Istanbul and Antalya are reportedly being consolidated in Ankara -- a move analysts read as groundwork for legal action. A political atmosphere has taken hold, in the assessment of Yetkin Report, in which further steps -- including stripping Ozel's parliamentary immunity or detaining Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas -- would be met with domestic fatalism and diplomatic resignation, responses from the EU limited to formal condemnations.
European governments privately hold that Imamoglu should be tried without pre-trial detention and that Osman Kavala and Selahattin Demirtas should be released in compliance with European Court of Human Rights rulings. In practice, official Ankara visits are filled with briefings at defence firms such as TUSAS and ASELSAN rather than confrontations over democratic standards. DEVA leader Ali Babacan, in remarks widely noted, described the trajectory as a "very bitter sentence for democracy."
On June 4, Ozel was photographed shaking hands warmly with MHP leader Devlet Bahceli at the Koc Group's 100th anniversary ceremony -- a moment that generated immediate commentary. Bahceli had previously accused Ozel of acting like an "adolescent revolutionary" and had demanded Kilicdaroglu's resignation; the public rapprochement was read as part of the same pressure that leaves Ozel choosing between prosecution and accommodation. Criticism of the Ankara summit as a vehicle for democratic backsliding had already surfaced publicly on June 1, ahead of Thursday's analysis confirming that pattern.