President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Heads of State and Government on the sidelines of the bloc’s summit in Washington and held bilateral discussions on Wednesday.
Erdoğan, who’s also meeting other leaders on the sidelines of the summit, was welcomed by U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO’s outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
Following the welcome ceremony, Erdoğan took an annual family photo with other NATO counterparts.
Erdoğan held his first bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in the U.S. with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
He also held a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Presidential Communications Directorate said.
“The meeting addressed bilateral relations between Türkiye and Greece as well as regional and global matters,” the directorate said, adding that Erdoğan told Mitsotakis that Türkiye strives to promote the spirit of solidarity with Greece.
“President Erdoğan also noted that intensifying positive actions to put an end to the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine is necessary and that it would benefit all countries in the region to work to ensure peace prevails in these geographies,” the directorate added.
He then attended a closed-door meeting with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Before leaving for the U.S., President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday Türkiye could not get what he wanted on the Palestine-Israel conflict from the military bloc and he would bring this issue due to the spotlight at the alliance’s summit. He said that he’d warn NATO on the issue.
The president is a staunch advocate of the Palestinian cause that seeks reinstatement of lands occupied by Israel and during the latest round of conflict, he raised the voice of resistance movement Hamas. Türkiye is engaged in global diplomatic efforts to maintain an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, where thousands of innocent civilians were slaughtered in the Israeli attacks, and, later, a lasting, two-state solution.
