{"id":197203,"date":"2026-07-08T23:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T23:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/197203\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T23:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T23:30:21","slug":"erdogan-can-help-restrain-israeli-aggression-says-nato-chief-mark-rutte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/197203\/","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan can help restrain Israeli aggression, says Nato chief Mark Rutte"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte has expressed confidence that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan<\/a> will prevent rising tension with Israel from escalating into a wider regional conflict, describing Turkey as the alliance’s primary crisis manager in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Ankara, where he is leading the defence alliance summit, Mr Rutte dismissed concerns that a potential clash involving Turkey, Israel and Syria could trigger Nato\u2019s Article 5 mutual-defence clause, stating that Mr Erdogan was unlikely to be drawn into a confrontation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Erdogan is an extremely wise President, and I completely concur also with what President [Donald] Trump said about Erdogan, that he is a wise leader,\u201d Mr Rutte told On The Record with Hadley Gamble. \u201cHe has been there for years in this role and in his job. He\u2019ll avoid getting into a situation which gets out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nato<\/a> chief’s remarks come amid sharpening rhetoric from Ankara. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan recently criticised Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Syria and Iran, warning of broader systemic risks to global stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people have become a burden that humanity can no longer bear,\u201d Mr Fidan told CNN Turk. He called Israel<\/a> \u201cnot only Turkey\u2019s problem, but a problem for the entire world\u201d, while urging the international community to impose sanctions and increase diplomatic pressure.<\/p>\n

When pressed on how Nato would respond if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a wider conflict unavoidable, Mr Rutte declined to speculate, choosing instead to highlight the origins of the continuing cycle of violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me not speculate on that, because in the end, let\u2019s not forget what happened on October 7, 2023. This terrible attack by Hamas on Israel, so it started not with Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Rutte\u2019s diplomatic mission to Ankara<\/a> took place against a backdrop of severe regional volatility, coming after renewed US air strikes on Iran and US President Donald Trump declaring that \u201cthe deal with Iran is done\u201d.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging that Nato remains in close contact with its partners in the Arabian Gulf<\/a>, Mr Rutte ruled out any direct military intervention by the alliance in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a meeting yesterday with four of the GCC partners, GCC parties, which are members of the ICI group, so the Istanbul group,\u201d Mr Rutte said, referring to the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are basically working closely together to see wherever Nato can be helpful, but obviously it is outside Nato territory, so for Nato to really get involved, of course, always willing to help, but that has to be a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Trump’s commitment to Nato is total’<\/p>\n

On the internal dynamics of the 32-member alliance, Mr Rutte strongly defended<\/a> Mr Trump\u2019s long-standing demands for European member states to increase their domestic defence budgets.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis commitment to Nato is total,\u201d Mr Rutte said of Mr Trump. \u201cBut he has this huge issue, which is in the US system, basically since Eisenhower, that is, that the deal is not fair. It is the US spending so much money on defence, and then it\u2019s the Europeans and Canadians not stepping up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Rutte credited the US administration with forcing a historic shift in allied spending<\/a>. Since Mr Trump\u2019s first term, defence expenditure by European members and Canada has surged, accelerating rapidly over the last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is at a staggering amount, $250 billion in two years’ extra defence spending by the Canadians and Europeans,\u201d Mr Rutte said.<\/p>\n

However, he warned that increased budgets<\/a> must urgently translate into industrial output and recruitment, and that the West is currently failing to manufacture adequate numbers of weapons. He called for deeper transatlantic co-production, suggesting European defence companies should invest in production lines within the US, while American companies build advanced systems \u2013 such as Tomahawk cruise missiles \u2013 on European soil.<\/p>\n

Mr Rutte also raised concerns over Europe’s industrial readiness for a protracted conflict and warned that its energy infrastructure is ill-prepared. Drawing comparisons to the 1991 Gulf War, he said that the fuel consumption required for modern air superiority vastly exceeds current European reserves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

‘We weren’t treated well’: Trump criticises Nato allies over Iran<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be careful that we maintain a certain level of production capacity of refineries, so that we can support the war effort, if that will be necessary,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are closing more refineries in Europe than we are opening.\u201d<\/p>\n

European officials are reviewing these logistical vulnerabilities, he added, particularly in relation to potential disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

War in Ukraine<\/p>\n

On the war in Ukraine<\/a>, which is in its fifth year, Mr Rutte defended Kyiv’s strategy of launching deep strikes into Russian territory, claiming they are severely disrupting Russia’s logistics and economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkrainians are very successful in hitting deep into Russia, the energy and also defensive industrial base infrastructure,\u201d he said, pointing to intelligence reports of fuel shortages and stating that Russia was \u201closing about 30,000 of its own, primarily young men\u201d in the hostilities.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the Nato chief aligned himself with Mr Trump\u2019s renewed push for a negotiated settlement to bring the war to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s pray sooner rather than later, but it is worse now going on for more than four years, so it is very difficult to predict,\u201d Mr Rutte said. \u201cBut I am totally with President Trump, that we should try to do everything now to bring this to a peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte has expressed confidence that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will prevent rising tension…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[2328,54,275,37,48,1486,3988,274,273,1176],"class_list":["post-197203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-defence","tag-europe","tag-foreign-desk-team","tag-israel","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-nato","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-standard","tag-story","tag-turkey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116886963913759300","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}