President Donald Trump made a striking admission during a joint session with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the alliance summit in Ankara, saying he believes Turkey wanted to join the recent war on Iran's side, against Israel, and that only his own intervention kept Ankara out of the fighting.
Trump opened by describing his personal rapport with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying he loves him and praising the red carpet reception he received on arrival in Turkey. He then turned to the tension between Erdogan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referencing a CNN interview in which Netanyahu had criticized Turkey and Erdogan directly. Trump said he likes Netanyahu and considers him a great wartime leader, but acknowledged that Netanyahu had said tough things about Turkey and Erdogan the day before.
Trump then described his own account of the conversation with Netanyahu. He said he told the Israeli prime minister that Erdogan could have joined the war, since Erdogan is not especially fond of Israel and does not particularly like Netanyahu either, but held back specifically as a favor to Trump. He described Turkey as a military power with millions of soldiers and significant firepower built on American equipment, and said Ankara is now pushing to acquire the F-35.
Later in the same remarks, Trump repeated the claim even more directly, saying Erdogan did not join the war but wanted to, on Iran's side, and would have done so had it not been for Trump himself.
The comments land at a delicate moment. Trump has been weighing whether to restore Turkey's access to the F-35 program, an idea he raised directly with Erdogan on the summit sidelines in Ankara, and one that has unsettled Israeli officials who see it as a threat to the qualitative military edge Israel has held as the only country in the Middle East currently flying the jet.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth was expected to break off from the president's delegation to travel to Israel this week for talks with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz on the issue. Netanyahu, in the CNN interview Trump referenced, had called Erdogan "not exactly a model ally of the United States," warning that the Turkish president "threatens to destroy my country, the one and only Jewish state."
Trump's account, that Turkey was itself weighing entry into the war against Israel, is the most direct suggestion yet from the American president that Ankara's posture during the conflict was far less neutral than it presented publicly, and it complicates the diplomatic balancing act now playing out over the F-35 sale, the future of Turkey's role in Syria, and Washington's broader relationship with both allies.
