Ankara Hosts the World: The 36th NATO Summit and What It Revealed About the Alliance’s New Centre of Gravity

For two days in the summer of 2026, Ankara was the diplomatic centre of the world. Thirty-two heads of state, 3,000 international journalists, and an agenda that spanned defence spending, F-35s, Ukraine, Iran, and the future of the transatlantic alliance. But what mattered most may not have been what was said at the podiums.

By TurkishBritish Magazine  |  Summer 2026

There is a particular kind of diplomatic event that changes the texture of a city for the duration of its existence. Ankara, which has never been confused with Istanbul for glamour or with Brussels for institutional weight, was, for the duration of the 36th NATO Leaders Summit, unmistakably the place where the decisions that shape the next decade of the Western alliance were being made. The press centre alone held 3,000 accredited journalists. The motorcades that moved between the Presidential Complex at Bestepe and the summit venue carried the leaders of every NATO member state. Yeniçeri — Janissaries in ceremonial dress, making their first appearance at a heads-of-state reception in 200 years — met world leaders at the gates.

The choice of Ankara as host was, in itself, a statement. Turkey had, in the years preceding the summit, navigated some of its most complicated relationships with the alliance simultaneously: its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence system had led to its exclusion from the F-35 programme; its refusal to participate in the US-led Iran coalition had created friction with Washington; its independent diplomatic relationships with both Moscow and Tehran had at various points been framed by NATO partners as unreliability. The Ankara summit was Turkey’s formal rejoining of the alliance’s inner circle — on its own terms.

Trump’s Condition for Attendance

The summit was, from the beginning, shaped by uncertainty about Donald Trump’s attendance. For weeks before the event, there was genuine doubt about whether the US president would make the journey. The doubt was resolved, characteristically, through a personal relationship. Trump’s statement on arrival was unambiguous about the calculus: “I’ll be honest — if it weren’t held in Turkey, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong person, it’s possible I wouldn’t have attended. I felt I had to attend.”

The “friend” in question was President Erdoğan, and the relationship between the two leaders gave the Ankara summit a different character from previous NATO meetings. Trump’s declaration that “Turkey has been more loyal than almost any other country” and that “Erdoğan is a great man and has done a great job” was, by any measure, extraordinary. His arrival was met by Mehter — the Ottoman military band — playing the Ceddi-den March, a ceremony that Trump acknowledged with a thumbs-up gesture that cameras captured from every angle.

The personal warmth had structural consequences. Trump announced, in the margins of the summit, the lifting of CAATSA sanctions that had been imposed on Turkey following its purchase of the Russian S-400 system. He green-lit the delivery of five F-35 jets for which Turkey had already paid. “We have good relations with Turkey. Why wouldn’t we do this?” he said at the press conference. Erdoğan’s response was calibrated: “When the F-35s are delivered to Turkey, the whole world will say that America kept its word.”

The Strategic Agenda: Defence Spending and NATO 3.0

Beneath the bilateral optics, the summit had a substantive agenda. The NATO budget — currently $1.089 trillion, of which the United States contributes approximately 57% — was at the centre of the burden-sharing debate that has dominated every NATO meeting since Trump’s first term. The Lahey commitments, set at the previous summit, had established a 5% of GDP target for defence spending by 2035. At Ankara, Turkey announced it would reach 3.5% by 2030, five years ahead of schedule.

Erdoğan’s speech to the summit — delivered in Turkish with simultaneous translation — made several points that went beyond the formulaic. He called for the removal of restrictions on defence industrial cooperation between NATO allies, a point that applied directly to Turkey’s own experience of being excluded from technology-sharing arrangements following the S-400 purchase. He endorsed Trump’s peace vision for Ukraine. And he made an offer, remarkable in its specificity, to contribute to the demining of the Strait of Hormuz — placing Turkey in the role of active peacemaker in the Iran crisis.

The summit declaration, issued at the conclusion of the two days, addressed cyber warfare, Chinese influence, the reconfiguration of defence industrial supply chains, and the expanded role of drones, autonomous systems, and UAVs in modern conflict — all areas where Turkey has developed significant capabilities. The mention of Bayraktar TB2 in corridor conversations, while not in the formal text, was noted by defence analysts who tracked the private discussions.

Ukraine and the Zelenski Moment

Volodymyr Zelenski’s presence at Ankara was itself significant — his attendance at NATO summits has become both expected and freighted with the weight of the war his country continues to fight. His statement at Ankara was pointed: “We see Russia weakening, we feel it, but it’s not enough. We need more pressure, more anti-ballistic systems, more sanctions on Russia.”

Trump’s response was more expansive than Zelenski might have hoped. The US president announced that Ukraine would receive production licences for Patriot air defence systems — a significant step that addressed one of Kyiv’s most persistent complaints about the gap between political commitments and material support. The announcement was received with relief rather than celebration in the Ukrainian delegation: expectations had, after two years of war, been calibrated for smaller gains.

Trump and Israel: A Signal Decoded

Among the most closely watched moments of the summit was Trump’s brief description of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as “a good wartime prime minister.” The phrase was parsed, immediately, as something more than casual praise. In diplomatic vocabulary, describing a leader as a wartime figure is also, implicitly, to suggest that wartime may be ending — that a different kind of leader, with different qualities, might be appropriate for what comes next.

Israeli observers read the formulation as a clear signal that Trump was, at least obliquely, opening space for a post-Netanyahu political settlement. His follow-up on Lebanon — “We have an agreement between Israel and Lebanon, and yes, they will withdraw. I think this will end well” — was more direct, implying a timeline for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory that had not previously been confirmed publicly.

The Ceremony: Janissaries, Mehter, and the Power of Symbolism

The most commented-upon single moment of the summit was not a speech or a communiqué. It was the ceremony at the Presidential Complex, in which world leaders were received not by a standard honour guard but by Yeniçeri — ceremonially dressed Ottoman Janissaries — making their first appearance at a heads-of-state event in two centuries, accompanied by the Mehter military band.

Erdoğan later recounted his conversation with leaders about the ceremony: “They all spoke with admiration. When shaking hands, they said it was truly magnificent. Some said: ‘We know your Janissaries.’” The image of Trump giving a thumbs-up to the Mehter while Erdoğan stood beside him — two leaders, two very different political traditions, united for a moment in appreciation of a performance that reached back 600 years — was one of the defining images of the summit.

The Greek press, characteristically, responded to the ceremony with anxiety rather than admiration, noting that Janissary imagery carried specific historical resonances for Greece. Erdoğan’s exchange with a Greek journalist at the press conference — in which he said “I recognise you from your eyes” and the room laughed — was a characteristic moment: warm, pointed, and impossible to classify as either friendly or hostile.