Islamist opposition leader says Turkey spent billions on NATO summit but won no concessions

Fatih Erbakan, leader of Turkey’s Islamist opposition New Welfare Party (YRP), on Thursday accused President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government of spending billions of lira on the NATO summit without securing binding decisions on US sanctions or F-35 fighter jets.

Speaking at a news conference in the Turkish Parliament, Erbakan said the government and its aligned media focused on Ottoman military music, menus and images of world leaders rather than explaining what Ankara obtained from the July 7-8 summit.

“For days, what did they tell us on television?” Erbakan said. “We played Ottoman military marches for the visiting leaders, and they were impressed. The Icelandic prime minister admired the presidential palace. President Erdoğan and Trump walked arm-in-arm. Macron loved the food.”

The summit brought leaders of NATO’s 32 member states to Ankara and ended with a six-paragraph declaration reaffirming the alliance’s collective defense commitment, announcing more than $50 billion in new defense purchases and pledging €70 billion in military support for Ukraine in 2026.

Erbakan said Turkey had received no firm commitment on the F-35s, engines for its KAAN fighter jet or the removal of sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

“There was no promise and no guarantee,” Erbakan said. “Unfortunately, Turkey sat down at the table at this NATO summit as the host but got up from the table as a waiter.”

US President Donald Trump told reporters on July 7 that Washington would remove the CAATSA sanctions and would make a decision on Turkey’s request to acquire F-35s, but he offered no timetable or details on how the legal barriers would be addressed.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said three days after the summit that Turkish and US officials were still working to resolve the sanctions and F-35 disputes, indicating that no formal settlement had been completed during the meeting.

Washington expelled Turkey from the F-35 consortium and imposed sanctions on its defense procurement agency after Ankara bought S-400 air defense systems from Russia, which NATO members say could allow Moscow to collect information about the advanced fighter jet.

US law requires Turkey to end its possession of the S-400 system before it can return to the F-35 program, while any sale could also face opposition in Congress.

The KAAN engine request advanced around the time of the summit.

The Trump administration formally notified Congress on June 24 of a proposed sale of GE Aerospace F110 engines worth more than $700 million for the Turkish fighter jet, and the congressional review period expired July 9 without lawmakers blocking the transaction.

Technical and commercial talks are still required, but the notification represented progress on one of the defense issues Erbakan listed.

Erbakan also accused the government of spending 181 million lira ($3.8 million) on billboards, signs and displays that would be discarded after the summit and claimed that the event’s total cost approached 15 billion lira ($319 million).

Erbakan said he did not oppose investments in Ankara but questioned why they had been tied to the arrival of foreign leaders.

“Did Trump have to come to Ankara for the people of Ankara to receive these services?” he asked.

Erbakan also criticized the detention of activists ahead of the summit, including people planning demonstrations in support of the Palestinians, arguing that the government’s treatment of protesters conflicted with Erdoğan’s public criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Turkish police detained 225 people in raids on June 23, with courts later ordering 178 jailed pending trial, while the Ankara governor’s office prohibited demonstrations from June 28 through July 10. Police detained more than 100 additional people during a march opposing NATO on July 5.

The government described the operations as investigations into outlawed organizations and denied using the summit as a pretext to suppress peaceful dissent.

Erbakan called on Turkey to reduce its reliance on NATO and revive the Developing Eight, or D-8, an economic group of Muslim majority countries established during the premiership of his father, the late Necmettin Erbakan.

“Give up the politics of submission, revive the D-8 and put the D-60 project into practice,” Erbakan said.

The YRP has sought to attract religious conservative voters dissatisfied with Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and emerged as a challenge to the government in the 2024 local elections.