Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, cautioned Thursday against a confrontation between NATO and Russia, saying that diplomacy must also be an option during an alliance conference intended to support Ukraine.
Aside from the US deciding to station long-range missiles in Germany, the summit in Washington resulted in declarations about the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine and Russia’s vow of retaliation against NATO’s “very serious threat”.
“I shared my views candidly here that NATO should never be allowed to be a party to the war in Ukraine,” Erdogan told a news conference after the 75th anniversary summit.
Erdogan said that Turkey, a rare NATO member not to join sanctions on Russia, supported the “territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.”
“I also emphasized that diplomacy should not be excluded and that negotiations do not necessarily mean surrendering,” he said.
In the event that he defeats President Joe Biden in November, presidential candidate Donald Trump—who during his first term developed a tight if complex connection with Erdogan—has threatened to force a deal on Ukraine.
During the summit, Biden rallied Western partners to defend Ukraine by promising a road for Kyiv to join NATO, an idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin finds unacceptable, and by providing a constant supply of arms.
According to remarks made by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and released by Russian news outlets, NATO is now “fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine.”
