ANKARA, May 20 – Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will tell NATO foreign ministers this week that the next NATO leaders’ summit, set for Ankara in July, should reaffirm the alliance’s unity and integrity, a foreign ministry source said on Wednesday.
• Fidan will attend a meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Thursday and Friday in Sweden’s Helsingborg.
• Turkey will host the next NATO leaders’ summit in Ankara on July 7-8.
• During the meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Fidan will share Turkey’s expectations regarding the Ankara summit and brief allied countries on Turkey’s efforts to ensure that it serves as a high-level event reaffirming the NATO’s unity and integrity, the source said.
• Fidan will also provide information on Turkey’s contributions to NATO and highlight “Turkey’s best practices regarding the conversion of defence expenditure into capabilities”.
• Fidan will emphasise the need to develop transatlantic defence industry cooperation within NATO without any restrictions.
• A separate Turkish diplomatic source said members of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), a partnership forum with several Middle Eastern countries, as well as Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Australia — known as the Indo-Pacific Four — may be invited to the Ankara summit at the foreign minister level.
• The source said that all NATO allies will agree in the coming days on the summit invitees and the issue may be discussed at the meeting in Sweden. REUTERS
