NATO Summit Held in Ankara

The 2026 NATO Summit was held in Ankara, Turkey, on or around July 7. Leaders from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates attended as participants in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. The gathering occurred as the war between the United States and Iran produced a continued stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz with escalation in fighting that week, according to the Atlantic Council.

Gulf states used the occasion to advance security arrangements that supplement rather than replace their ties with Washington. Ukraine deployed two hundred counter-drone specialists to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Kyiv also signed ten-year defense agreements with those three countries and offered inexpensive interceptors against Iranian drones.

Gulf states had previously used four-million-dollar Patriot missiles for the same task. South Korea’s Cheongung-II air defense system recorded its first combat intercept while defending the UAE. Seoul supplied replacement interceptors to the UAE within days.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar purchased counter-drone systems from Turkey during the war. Pakistan maintains a 2025 mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia. The Atlantic Council reported that China provided no security or diplomatic support to Gulf states during the conflict and that Russia did not press Iran to halt attacks on Gulf partners.

An Atlantic Council dialogue in Brussels with Germany’s Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, the UAE’s Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Saud Al-Faisal Institute for Diplomatic Studies examined how Gulf and Euro-Atlantic security have become more closely linked.

Accounts differ on the implications of expanded US-Turkey defense cooperation. ca reported that it risks isolating Israel and deepening NATO fractures.