NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that the alliance would do “what’s necessary” to defend its members, including Turkey, after intercepting four missiles fired from Iran that entered Turkish airspace in recent weeks, AFP reported.
NATO forces shot down ballistic missiles fired from Iran on four separate occasions, prompting the alliance to deploy a new Patriot missile battery at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.
“Iran is spreading terror and chaos, and you feel this prominently here in Turkey,” Rutte told journalists during a visit to Aselsan, Turkey’s largest defense electronics company.
“NATO is prepared for such threats and will always do what is necessary to defend Turkey and all others. And we cannot do it alone,” he added.
Rutte’s visit comes ahead of a NATO leaders’ summit scheduled for July in Ankara.
Praising Turkey’s advances in the defense sector, Rutte said: “We can learn a lot from what Turkey is doing here.”
“This is needed because we live in a more dangerous world,” he said. “That means we need strong defenses to protect our security.”
Rutte added that “Turkey has undergone a defense industrial revolution. I could truly say it has been a revolution in recent years.”
Former Turkish Ambassador to NATO Ümit Yardım told Kyiv Post that Rutte’s visit comes at a moment when Ankara is seeking to re-establish itself as a central actor within the alliance.
“That is another important aspect for Ankara. Turkey is one of NATO’s oldest members and a signatory to the alliance’s strategic documents identifying Russia as its main adversary. At the same time, Ankara is still trying to balance its policy between NATO and Russia,” Yardım said in an interview with Kyiv Post.
“I do not think that balance can be sustained for long. It is becoming more difficult every day to reconcile close ties with Russia with Turkey’s status as a NATO member,” he said.
Still, Yardım said, the most immediate issues for Turkey remain the Middle East, Ukraine, and the future of relations between the US and other NATO members.
He added that defense spending would also remain a major internal alliance issue, particularly the debate over the 5% spending target pushed by US President Donald Trump.
In his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Rutte highlighted the country’s contribution to the alliance and discussed preparations for the upcoming summit in Ankara.