With only days to go until NATO's Ankara Summit on July 7-8, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte delivered important messages about Turkey. Here are highlights from Rutte's answers to Anadolu Agency's questions: Turkey is an extremely important country for NATO. Although not among the founding members, it joined NATO only 3 years after the alliance's establishment, in 1952.
Therefore, it has been part of the alliance almost from the very beginning. Today, it also has one of NATO's strongest armies. The Turkish Armed Forces are extremely well-equipped and well-trained. In addition, having a massive defense industry infrastructure consisting of about 3,000 companies is also an important advantage.
These large, medium and small-scale companies place great emphasis on innovation; they develop the latest technologies and, for example, apply lessons learned from the battlefield in the Ukraine war to defense industry production. This makes Turkey's defense industry extremely strong. That is why we were very determined to organize the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum on July 7 in Ankara.
Our aim, of course, is to demonstrate not only Turkey's but also NATO's overall defense industry capacity. However, Turkey hosting such a forum is an extremely apt choice. NATO operates with a 360-degree security perspective, meaning we look at threats from all directions. Terrorism is also an important part of this 360-degree approach.
The assessments and information provided to us by Turkey's political and military leadership on this issue are critically important for protecting the security of the entire alliance. AA transformed and grew stronger. NATO, founded in 1949 with 12 countries against the Soviet Union threat, continues its path 77 years later as the world's longest-lasting military alliance, with 32 members, having transformed and adapted to current challenges.
Turkey joined NATO in 1952. Having the alliance's second largest army, Turkey draws attention within NATO with its geostrategic position, military capacity, regional influence, defense industry capabilities, effective diplomacy, leadership capacity and contributions to operations and missions.
Turkey, which maintains burden sharing not only in capability development and defense spending but also by making concrete contributions to peace and stability with the principle of regional ownership, stands out as one of the countries contributing the most to NATO's operations and missions. Seeing ASELSAN was very impressive. I visited ASELSAN in April. Seeing this company up close was truly very impressive.
Also, seeing how ASELSAN cooperates with many companies in Turkey, and how the Turkish defense industry develops partnerships with companies throughout Europe and the US, was extremely impressive. Turkey investing in the US, and US and other European companies investing in Turkey, demonstrates strong cooperation.
We need this, because this forms the basis of our deterrence. President Erdoğan received the Turkish Catholic Bishops' delegation.
