\n
![\"NATO](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6a3e0cae712c3a6c3dbdf189.jpg\")
<\/p>\n WASHINGTON
\n<\/p>\n
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte<\/a> has said the alliance\u2019s Ankara summit will highlight defense<\/a> industry<\/a> cooperation and innovation, while praising T\u00fcrkiye<\/a>\u2019s growing role in NATO\u2019s industrial base.<\/p>\n Speaking at the Atlantic Council ahead of the July 7-8 summit, Rutte said allies would use the meeting to show that NATO is delivering on commitments made at last year\u2019s summit in The Hague.<\/p>\n \u201cAt Ankara, we are going to show the world that we are delivering on the commitments we made in The Hague last year,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n He said the summit would focus on implementing what he described as \u201cNATO 3.0,\u201d a stronger European pillar within a stronger alliance.<\/p>\n Rutte recalled that allies had agreed in The Hague to invest 5 percent of gross domestic product in defense by 2035, calling the decision \u201chistoric.\u201d<\/p>\n European allies and Canada spent an additional $1.2 trillion on defense between 2016 and 2026, he said, adding that defense investment rose by nearly 20 percent in 2025 alone.<\/p>\n Rutte said higher budgets now needed to be turned into concrete military capabilities, warning that the equipment needed for deterrence and defense was not being produced at the speed or scale required.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we need and what we are working to foster is a real transatlantic defense industrial revolution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The NATO chief said the Ankara summit would provide a platform to show how allies were increasing production and cooperation.<\/p>\n He said \u201ctens of billions of dollars\u201d in new contracts would be announced, including agreements, letters of intent and major contracts.<\/p>\n Rutte said a major defense industry day would be held on the first day of the summit, adding that NATO\u2019s industrial base should be seen as stretching \u201cfrom California up to and including T\u00fcrkiye.\u201d<\/p>\n He said T\u00fcrkiye has around 3,000 defense industry companies operating across NATO territory.<\/p>\n Rutte also referred to his visit to ASELSAN earlier this year, describing the company as T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s largest defense electronics firm.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are driving T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s defense industrial revolution, which will benefit every member of our alliance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Rutte said Russia remained NATO\u2019s current and long-term threat, while also pointing to China\u2019s military modernization, North Korea\u2019s nuclear program and Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions as security concerns.<\/p>\n He added that NATO would continue supporting Ukraine and said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was expected to attend the Ankara summit.<\/p>\n The NATO summit will be held at the presidential complex in Ankara on July 7-8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said the alliance\u2019s Ankara summit will highlight defense industry cooperation and innovation,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[60,2942,467,337],"class_list":["post-3907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-defense","tag-industry","tag-rutte","tag-trkiye"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}