Turkey tightens security and showcases strength and commitment ahead of NATO summit

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey is rolling out sweeping security measures for the upcoming NATO summit, deploying tens of thousands of police and placing air defenses on high alert, while banning public gatherings and imposing controversial restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly.

That's meant to safeguard the summit, but also to display strength and underscore Turkey’s commitment to NATO, even as it is often portrayed as an outlier within it.

On July 7–8, leaders from all 32 member states are expected convene in the Turkish capital, including U.S. President Donald Trump, whose threats to withdraw from NATO and reduce U.S. troop levels have cast uncertainty over the alliance’s future.

Turkey has also unveiled a new VIP airport, converted from a former military airfield, specifically to host NATO leaders.

At the Ankara summit, NATO members are expected to address questions over defense spending and the U.S.’s evolving role in the alliance.

The main agenda will center on unity after Trump has criticized allies for failing to support the U.S.-led war on Iran and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“The important aspect of the meeting is to what extent the rift between the United States and Europe can be healed or narrowed during the summit,” said Fatih Ceylan, a former Turkish ambassador to NATO and security analyst at the Ankara Policy Center. “We should not expect miracles, but nonetheless if there is a convergence of ideas emphasizing the importance of NATO, that should be seen as a success.”

Turkey's role as host seems to have helped win an appearance by Trump, who has a close rapport with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Well, except for the fact that it was being held in Turkey by President Erdogan, I don’t think I would have gone to it,” he told reporters following a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House.

In the runup to the summit, Erdogan has described Turkey as a reliable ally that consistently shoulders responsibility on NATO’s southeastern flank and would continue to play a leading role in the alliance. He said his country was working to ensure that the Ankara Summit “will stand as a reference point in NATO’s history.”

A NATO member since 1952, Turkey has the alliance’s second-largest army after the United States, a fast-growing defense industry, and occupies a strategic location the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East the Black Sea, and the Caucasus.

Yet it has often acted independently, frustrating allies by refusing to participate in sanctions on Russia, engaging in disputes with Greece, and purchasing Russian missile defense systems — a move that led to its expulsion from the U.S.-led F-35 program in 2019.

Turkey also delayed Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership until it secured concessions on counter-terrorism cooperation and the lifting of arms export restrictions, and blocked the appointments of NATO chiefs Anders Fogh Rassmussen in 2009 and Mark Rutte in 2024 until other demands were met.

But Turkey's independent streak has also enabled it to play a mediating role, from brokering a deal to ship grain across the Black Sea between Ukraine and Russia in 2022 to supporting recent initiatives aimed at ending the war in Iran.

Ankara too has at times been frustrated with its NATO allies, particularly over what it saw as the alliance’s lack of solidarity during a failed coup attempt in 2016, and the arms sales restrictions imposed on Turkey after its intervention in Syria.

Murat Aslan, an analyst at the Ankara-based SETA think tank, said Turkey learned to “play it alone” due to its turbulent relations with the United States and Europe, adding that Europe is now also talking about “strategic autonomy” from the U.S.

Turkey can help NATO navigate U.S.–Europe tensions by showing how to “balance” independence with alliance commitments, he said.

More recently, however, Turkey has leaned closer to NATO, whose importance was underscored during the Iran war when alliance missile defenses intercepted four missiles fired from Iran into Turkish territory. Weeks before the summit, Italy and Germany deployed air defense systems to help Turkey respond to heightened threats.

“Turkey wishes to distinguish itself as a foreign policy actor that is independent of NATO and the West,” wrote Hamish Kinnear, principal Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, in a note. “While Turkey is not abandoning its balancing approach, it is tilting closer to the West, primarily because of NATO.”

In Ankara, strict access restrictions will be imposed on several of the city's main arteries, around airports, the presidential complex where the summit will be held, and around hotels hosting the delegations, severely disrupting life in the city of nearly 6 million.

As the country prepares for the summit, Erdogan unveiled a new airport which was transformed from a former military airfield into a modern facility with expanded runways. The new Ankara Airport is expected to remain a VIP airport after the summit and is not expected to serve the general public, officials have said.

Facades of houses along the route from the new airport have been painted over as part of city beautification effort, the newspaper Cumhuriyet reported.

With a history of terrorist attacks, Turkey's capital is no stranger to tight security, but the measures being taken in connection with NATO appear to go beyond the usual.

Authorities have also banned demonstrations, concerts, and graduation ceremonies during the summit, while non-essential state employees have been placed on leave to ease congestion.

Security units have detained more than 200 people suspected of links to extremist groups, including the Islamic State group, authorities said. Media reports said that several activists, lawyers and an academic were caught up in the sweep.

A Turkish court, meanwhile, blocked access to websites critical of NATO and the summit on security and public order grounds, according to Engelli Web, a website that tracks websites banned in Turkey. Several journalists from Turkish opposition-leaning media organizations were denied accreditation to cover the summit, sparking outrage from media rights groups.

“In the history of the organization, we have never witnessed security measures as stringent and suffocating in a host city for a summit as we are seeing this time in Ankara,” wrote Namik Tan, a former Turkish ambassador and legislator from Turkey's main opposition party.

Personal trainer Selin Karakoc said she breathed a sigh of relief after she was told that her wedding on July 5 falls just before the start of the restrictions.

“Ours could be one of the last weddings in Ankara that week,” she joked.

FILE - Flags flap in the wind outside NATO headquarters in Brussels, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

Demonstrators chant slogans and raise placards, including a sign depicting U.S. President Donald Trump, during an anti-NATO protest in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, June 27, 2026, days ahead of the NATO summit scheduled to be held in Ankara on July 7-8.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Demonstrators chant slogans and raise placards, during an anti-NATO protest in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, June 27, 2026, days ahead of the NATO summit scheduled to be held in Ankara on July 7-8.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

ECONE, Switzerland (AP) — With the threat of schism and excommunication hanging over them, a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics on Wednesday celebrated an ancient Latin Mass in direct defiance of Pope Leo XIV to consecrate four bishops without his consent.

Bells tolled through the mountain valley of Econe, Switzerland, as the Society of St. Pius X began the solemn ceremony at its seminary. Thousands of people, faithful Catholics who prefer the traditional Latin Mass over modern liturgies, filled the field under cloudy skies as the incense-led procession of hundreds of priests approached the altar under a tent.

The orderly ceremony, accompanied by organ music and livestreamed on the society's YouTube channel, went ahead despite a last-ditch appeal by Leo to call it off. In a letter published Tuesday, the American pope warned that consecrating bishops without his approval amounts to a “sin of extreme gravity” that will actually harm their faithful.

According to church law, the mere act of consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate incurs the harshest penalty in the Catholic Church: automatic excommunication for the four new bishops and the bishop administering the rite. It also amounts to a schismatic act, or an intentional rupture of the unity of the Catholic Church.

And yet everything about Wednesday’s ceremony had the air of a joyous celebration. The website for its consecration has had a countdown clock running for days. Video clips show seminarians joyfully unloading boxes. Participants will receive a baseball cap with the “Econe2026” seal on it.

And in perhaps the most obvious sign of a celebration, registered participants were able to purchase a souvenir set of wine to commemorate the “historic” event. The 75 Swiss franc ($92.50) “Cuvee des Sacres” gift box features pinot noir, Syrah, Petit Arvine and Fendant, each bottle with a bishop-themed label: an image of a bishop’s pointed miter hat, his ring, cross or crozier staff.

For the society, known by its acronym SSPX, neither the threat of a declared schism nor an excommunication matters. The SSPX believes it alone is upholding church tradition and the Catholic faith.

“We don’t fear it. It pains us immensely, but we believe that the good we seek is greater than the pain that will be inflicted upon us,” said Marc-André Mabillard, media manager for the society.

In a late response to Leo's letter, the SSPX superior, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, urged Leo to wait before declaring any penalty.

The ceremony took place 38 years to the day after the Vatican declared the last consecrations of SSPX bishops a “schismatic act” that incurred automatic excommunication for the bishops.

The French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had founded the ultratraditionalist SSPX in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s church meetings revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

Today, the SSPX celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and has accused the modern church of being rife with heresies and errors, including modernism, liberalism and ecumenism. The society insists that only the SSPX is upholding the true faith of Christ and has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.

But many Catholics, including conservative and traditional ones, are opposed to the consecrations, viewing them as an act of severe disobedience to the pope that hurts the church.

“You can’t serve tradition while disobeying the church and her authority,” said the Rev. Robert Gahl, an ethics expert at the Catholic University of America.

The St. John Paul II biographer, George Weigel, has written that the SSPX-Vatican divide is about far more than just whether Mass is celebrated in Latin or English.

It’s about “a rejection of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on the church, salvation, religious freedom, church–state relations, and the church’s relationship to other religions,” Weigel wrote recently in First Things magazine.

Weigel recalled that Lefebvre was a supporter of the “collaborationist" Vichy regime in France during World War II. One of its original SSPX bishops denied the Holocaust.

The SSPX has justified the consecrations by invoking a “state of necessity.” The group says that with only two of the original four bishops surviving, it simply needs more bishops to tend to the needs of a faith community that counts 800 places of worship in 77 countries.

The group denies that the consecration is a rejection of Leo’s authority or a challenge to his power. Rather, it says the creation of four new bishops is solely to be able to ordain new priests and preside over confirmation ceremonies according to the ancient rite.

The SSPX has identified the new bishops as Pascal Schreiber of Switzerland, Michael Goldade of the United States, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry of France and Marc Hanappier, also of France.

In response to the pope’s letter, Mabillard, media manager for the society, expressed “great sadness to not be understood by our leader,” and added: “We are changing absolutely nothing in our plans.”

Winfield contributed from Rome.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV leaves after a Mass where he conferred the pallium on newly appointed metropolitan archbishops, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV waves during the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV leaves after a Mass where he conferred the pallium on newly appointed metropolitan archbishops, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)