After a 22-year hiatus, the leaders of NATO member states are once again convening in Türkiye. The Ankara summit is poised to be one of the most critical turning points in NATO’s 77-year history, serving as the threshold for a new era where the alliance’s future roadmap will be delineated.
The most critical agenda item of the upcoming Ankara summit is the adaptation of the alliance to the emerging global order and the formulation of a new strategic doctrine.
Prior to the summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan highlighted the imperative for institutional revision, saying, "Today's world is not a continuation of the old world in which NATO was founded. A new world has been established, and within this new global architecture, NATO’s positioning must be fundamentally different."
In this context, Türkiye is charting a course not merely as a host nation, but as the actor best equipped to evaluate the contemporary risks facing NATO and the prerequisites of this new era. Shifting away from its Cold War role of solely safeguarding NATO’s southern flank, Türkiye has ascended to a position of vital, global strategic importance for the alliance.
The motto of Türkiye’s inclusive foreign policy vision is defined as "an effective Türkiye, both on the ground and at the negotiating table." This vision transitions Türkiye from a state that merely reacts to external actions to a primary decision-making actor.
