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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Wednesday that outstanding disagreements with Greece in the Aegean Sea must be addressed directly between the two countries' leaders, as he closed the NATO summit his country hosted in Ankara and rejected criticism from both Greece and Israel over Türkiye's pursuit of F-35 fighter jets.
Speaking at the conclusion of the two-day gathering, Erdogan said objections from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Türkiye's potential acquisition of the stealth aircraft "have no place in my world."
He said it was clear "in which waters Netanyahu swims," but added that Mitsotakis "should not have fallen into such an error."
Erdogan also framed the summit itself as a vindication of Türkiye's standing in the alliance.
All NATO members participated at the leaders' level, he noted, calling the full attendance "fresh proof of the confidence placed in Türkiye."
Erdogan struck a confident tone on defense, saying Türkiye is "well ahead" of many allies in defense spending, military capabilities, and defense industry output, and stands as one of the rare members that produces its own fighter jets, tanks, ships, and air defense systems.
He said Türkiye commands and controls NATO's second-largest land army and that the security of the alliance's southeastern flank has been "largely entrusted" to Ankara for decades.
He used the summit's close to call for reform within the alliance's defense trade practices, arguing that restrictions on the exchange of defense industry products among allies must be "lifted without delay."
He also cautioned that EU defense initiatives should complement NATO rather than create unnecessary duplication.
On the broader character of the alliance, Erdogan said NATO "must be an alliance of allies that strengthen one another, not one of countries dependent on each other," and described the Ankara summit as having laid the foundations for a NATO built on greater European responsibility and strengthened military capabilities through fair burden-sharing, and added that Türkiye stands ready to assume a greater share of that responsibility.
Erdogan pointed to Türkiye's domestic air defense program, describing it as "the strongest arm-wrestling match NATO has in the regions where we are present," and said that while others may have different systems, Türkiye has its Steel Dome.
The Steel Dome, Türkiye's indigenously developed layered air and missile defense architecture, has been a centerpiece of Ankara's push for strategic autonomy in defense.
On the broader regional security environment, Erdogan said the region "can tolerate neither a new escalation nor a new conflict," and described peace, stability, and calm as essential to humanity, "like air and water." He argued that those who see their own security in the region's instability are working to extinguish "even the smallest glimmer of peace," an apparent reference to Israel's military operations in the region.
Erdogan reaffirmed Türkiye's readiness to bring Russia and Ukraine back to the table, saying Ankara remains prepared "to gather both sides together again" in pursuit of a just peace. "A just peace has no losers," he said.
Türkiye has previously hosted talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul in 2022, in the early weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion, and Erdogan has positioned Ankara as a durable back-channel between the two sides throughout the conflict.
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