Before the guests arrive, the host has been working the phones. In the run-up to the NATO summit Türkiye hosts in Ankara on 7 and 8 July, President Erdoğan held separate calls with the leaders of Germany, Italy and Canada, and Ankara gave each the same message.
Türkiye's Communications Directorate, which released the Turkish account of every call, kept to one script. Erdoğan told each leader that Ankara wants to raise cooperation, above all in the defense industry, and that he expects the summit to strengthen unity among allies and Europe's own defense while preserving the transatlantic bond. To Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in a call on 29 June, he added that Türkiye is still working to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to a lasting peace and to restart negotiations, the mediation role Ankara has claimed since 2022.
The call with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, on 3 July, was the one both governments described, and the two readouts do not match at the edges. Palazzo Chigi's own account reached past the Turkish one: the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the transatlantic relationship and to common defense within NATO, stressed the importance of the alliance's Southern Flank, and exchanged views on Libya, including cooperation against irregular migration. Where Ankara led with the defense industry, Rome led with the Mediterranean. Both said they would meet at the summit.
With Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, on 4 July, the framing diverged more sharply. Ankara's readout was bilateral: trade, security, the defense industry and energy, the sectors Erdoğan said the two governments were working to raise to a higher level, along with his congratulations on Canada Day. Ottawa did not publish its own account of the call. Its announcement of the trip, made days earlier, framed Carney's visit in alliance terms, to strengthen Canada's contributions to NATO, forge new partnerships with allies, and build shared security, including in the defense of Ukraine.
The phone rounds are the overture to the week itself. Erdoğan hosts the alliance's leaders on 7 and 8 July, the first NATO summit Türkiye has held since Istanbul in 2004, and will run his own line of sideline meetings once they land, starting with Trump, who arrives on Tuesday. Each of the three leaders he called is due in Ankara.
For a host, a summit is leverage as much as ceremony. Erdoğan spent the week before it saying so, one call at a time.