World
Trump arrives Turkey for NATO summit
United States President Donald Trump arrived in Ankara, Turkey, on Tuesday to attend the NATO summit, where alliance leaders are expected to reassure him with fresh commitments to increase defence spending.
An AFP correspondent confirmed that Trump landed in the Turkish capital ahead of the high-level meeting.
The US president is scheduled to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the presidential palace before attending an official dinner with other world leaders. The main session of the NATO summit is expected to take place on Wednesday.
Trump landed at 1:51 pm (1051 GMT) after making his first foreign flight aboard his new Qatari-gifted Air Force One plane where he was greeted on the tarmac by Erdogan and a presidential guard, some dressed in blue, others in red.
On his first official visit to Ankara, Trump was then to be taken to Erdogan’s presidential palace where guardsmen dressed in historical warrior costumes were awaiting him on the steps outside, an AFP correspondent said.
The palace boasts soaring atriums and grandiose halls, its interior decorated with onyx, marble and intricate geometric patterns.
The opulence was not likely to be lost on Trump, with one room displaying an impressionistic painting of Erdogan and a cabinet with a crystal panther, an AFP correspondent said.
Ahead of his arrival, NATO allies have tried to showcase surging defence spending with new arms contracts worth billions in an effort to placate the mercurial US leader’s fury over Europe’s response to the war with Iran.
The two-day gathering comes a year after NATO members pledged to ramp up security-related spending to five percent of GDP under pressure from the US leader.
NATO chief Mark Rutte has insisted European countries are “delivering” by bolstering military budgets and moving to take more responsibility for the defence of their continent in the face of Russia.
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