United States President Donald Trump will hold separate meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in Ankara, Turkiye, this week, the White House has announced.
The summit is scheduled for 7 and 8 July at the Presidential Complex in Ankara. It will be the 36th NATO gathering and the first hosted by Turkiye since Istanbul in 2004.
Trump and Zelensky spoke by telephone on Saturday, with the Ukrainian president describing the call as “very good” and saying there was a “real prospect” of ending the conflict in Ukraine.
The two leaders agreed to continue discussions at the NATO summit, where Ukraine’s path toward the alliance and the state of ceasefire negotiations with Russia are expected to feature prominently on the bilateral agenda.
Trump also confirmed a meeting with Syria’s al-Sharaa, whose government has been the subject of growing Western diplomatic engagement since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024.
Trump lifted Syria sanctions shortly after al-Sharaa took power. French President Emmanuel Macron is separately expected to visit Damascus this week in what would be the most significant European diplomatic engagement with Syria’s new government to date.
Trump told reporters last week that his decision to attend the summit was driven largely by his personal relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“I would not have gone for most people. But he called me up. He said: ‘Please, I have it in Turkey. You got to be there.’ And so I’m going out of respect to President Erdogan,” Trump said.
Trump is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Erdogan on the sidelines, with Turkish defence procurement expected to feature in the discussions.
The summit’s formal agenda will focus on European defence spending and the future United States role within the alliance.
NATO members agreed in 2025 to invest five per cent of their gross domestic product in defence by 2035, with 3.5 per cent directed at core military requirements.
Trump has repeatedly criticised European allies for what he describes as inadequate defence spending and has questioned Washington’s continued commitment to collective security obligations.
(The Whistler)
