Rutte Completes Ankara Visit — Erdoğan Offers Turkey's Russia-Ukraine Mediation Role; NATO Pledges to Always Defend Turkey

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte completed his two-day Ankara visit on April 22, holding substantive sessions with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and visiting Turkey's state defense electronics firm ASELSAN — one of the world's top-40 defense companies. At a joint appearance, Rutte pledged that NATO 'will always defend' Turkey, addressing recent Iranian ballistic missile activity: Iran had fired four missiles into Turkish airspace in the preceding weeks, heightening Ankara's frontline exposure in the post-Hormuz strategic environment. Erdoğan told Rutte that Turkey is actively 'working to revive Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations' — signaling Ankara's continued positioning as a potential mediator between Moscow and Kyiv ahead of the July summit. Rutte also called on all NATO allies to 'jointly ramp up defense production,' citing the July 7–8 Ankara Summit as the venue for advancing industrial cooperation. The ASELSAN visit carried a deliberate signal: Turkey's defense industrial capacity is a strategic asset to be integrated into the alliance rather than a friction point. The two-day visit produced no formal communiqué, consistent with NATO's 'no media opportunity' designation issued April 20, but was described as substantive progress on summit preparation. NATO analysts noted the visit successfully recalibrated the alliance's relationship with Ankara after years of friction over S-400 systems, the Finland/Sweden accession delays, and Turkey's continued Moscow commercial ties.