President Donald Trump will use Türkiye's NATO summit to hold face-to-face talks on Ukraine and Syria. The White House said on Sunday that Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in separate bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit in Ankara, with President Erdoğan as his first stop.
The schedule the White House laid out puts Erdoğan at the front of it. Trump leaves Washington on Monday evening and lands in Ankara on Tuesday afternoon, 7 July, when he is due to meet the Turkish leader. On Wednesday he joins the official welcome, the family photo and the NATO leaders' working session, then sits down separately with Zelenskyy and al-Sharaa before holding a press conference and leaving.
The Ukraine meeting is the one Kyiv has pushed for. Zelenskyy has said there is "a real prospect of ending this war," and the White House cast the Ankara talks as a continuation of that effort. A US official said Trump expects to follow up with Russian President Vladimir Putin once he has seen Zelenskyy.
The Syria meeting is harder to read. US officials would not say what Trump wants from al-Sharaa, the former rebel leader who has run Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. The Associated Press reported that Trump has repeatedly pressed Damascus to turn against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that al-Sharaa has shown no interest in doing so. That either of these leaders is meeting an American president at all measures how far the map has moved.
Around the bilaterals sits the summit's real argument, which is money. A senior US official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said Washington expects every ally to show "meaningful upward trajectories" in defense spending toward the 3.5 percent target agreed at the NATO summit in The Hague, and promised "billions of dollars" in announcements on the sidelines, from co-production deals to factory-building with European and Canadian partners. The same official said maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz is likely to come up, with several allies offering ships and capabilities.
For Türkiye, the summit is the return of an event it last hosted a generation ago. The North Atlantic Council convenes on 8 July under Erdoğan, the second time the country has held the summit after Istanbul in 2004, and Erdoğan will run his own round of bilateral meetings alongside Trump's. First lady Emine Erdoğan hosts the visiting spouses at the presidential complex on 7 July, and a two-day "Allies in Ankara" program at the historic Ankara Palas, organized with the Munich Security Conference and the SETA foundation, stacks 45 side events onto the official agenda. Communications Director Burhanettin Duran called the week proof that Türkiye now hosts "the summits that shape world politics."
The pageantry belongs to Ankara. The conflicts Trump is bringing to the table belong to other capitals, and Ankara is where their leaders will sit down to talk.