Erdogan Intensifies Crackdown as Summit Guests Arrive
More than 200 people were arrested in raids across Turkey ahead of the summit, with a comedian and journalists jailed, protests banned in Ankara, and a gay-friendly cruise turned away from port. President Erdogan’s principal rival, Istanbul’s mayor, appeared at three separate trials today as alliance leaders flew in. The clampdown presents NATO’s democracies with an awkward backdrop to a summit their host has spent months preparing.
The alliance has always contained authoritarian-leaning members, but rarely has the tension been staged this visibly: leaders defending a rules-based order stepping off planes into a capital where the host’s opposition is being processed through courtrooms in real time. European governments need Erdogan — on Ukraine, on Black Sea security, on Syria’s rehabilitation, on the Iran truce he claims guardianship of — which is precisely the leverage that makes raising the crackdown unlikely beyond boilerplate. The summit’s optics are his reward for strategic indispensability. Watch whether any leader mentions the arrests publicly, and how Turkish authorities handle protest during the summit days.