What to expect from Trump's meetings with Erdogan and Sharaa in Ankara
Submitted by Yasmine El-Sabawi on Mon, 07/06/2026 - 18:58
The US president has praised both leaders for their strength and charm
US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pose for a photo during the Gaza ceasefire summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on 13 October 2025 (Evan Vucci/AFP) Off US President Donald Trump is heading to Turkey for the annual Nato summit on Tuesday, where he is expected to kick off his trip with a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and cap off the summit with a sit-down with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday.
Building on personal relationships - especially where his predecessor Joe Biden may have failed - is what Trump does best.
The US president has made no secret of his admiration for both regional leaders, calling Erdogan "strong" and Sharaa "tough". He has also warmly credited the Turkish president with Sharaa's rise to power after Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow in December 2024.
The sentiments have in many ways defied longstanding US policy among both Republicans and Democrats, given Erdogan's crackdown on dissent in his own country, his support for Palestinian factions in Gaza, and Sharaa's past as a US-designated terrorist.
Trump, however, has praised Erdogan and Sharaa while berating most of the European leaders attending this week's summit.
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Trump and Erdogan
"The dynamic between [Trump] and Erdogan, this sort of intriguing sense of solidarity that they seem to have, is going to play in a positive sense for Trump," Alper Coskun, a former Turkish diplomat now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Middle East Eye.
"He will find an increasingly willing actor on the part of Turkey to pursue a more aligned policy with the United States in the broader Middle East... even in the context of Gaza, you hear the Turkish foreign minister saying that he cites that as an area where Turkey and the US are very closely aligned."
Indeed Hakan Fidan was in attendance at Trump's inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace, but did not manage to secure a spot for Turkish troops as part of an International Stabilisation Force, thanks to pushback from the Israelis.
Middle East Eye's editor-in-chief David Hearst has previously opined that Turkey has become Israel’s "latest existential enemy".
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that only Israel should have the military edge that the highly-coveted F-35 US fighter jet supplies.
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Erdogan leads "a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants death to America from that side of the spectrum," Netanyahu said of the Turkish leader's Justice and Development Party, known locally as the AK Party.
"I don't think they should be given F-35 or the engines for their fighter jets, because that'll upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority."
'[Trump] will find an increasingly willing actor on the part of Turkey to pursue a more aligned policy with the United States in the broader Middle East'
- Alper Coskun, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Israel has used the F-35 heavily in its genocide in Gaza, and plants producing F-35 parts across Nato countries have been targeted by protesters.
In what seems to have been a confidence-building measure in lieu of admitting Ankara back into the F-35 programme, the Trump administration late last month notified Congress that it would be selling a $700m military package to the Turks, comprising General Electric F110 turbofan engines, which are designed to power their Kaan indigenous fighter jet.
Turkey was banned from the F-35 programme in 2019 and sanctioned for its acquisition of the s-400 defence system from Russia.
The Turks said it was because the Americans refused to supply them with US defence infrastructure, but they do also maintain friendly ties with Moscow despite being part of the Nato alliance.
While there's optimism in Ankara that Turkey may come off the US sanctions list owing to the personal relationship between the two presidents, "I don't think anybody's ready to bet that Trump will use his credit with Congress to advance that issue," Coskun said.
"I don't expect an immediate solution, because of the very difficult obstacle in terms of dispossession of the S-400s, which is a requirement for Turkey."
The US is concerned that sensitive information on the F-35 may be exposed to Russia.
But Turkey says the S-400 system has yet to be activated, giving it leeway to negotiate with Washington.
"[Trump] puts a great deal of emphasis on... warmth and conviviality, but hopefully somebody at the Department of State is talking about the things that we need from Turkey, which is to help ensure Nato sticks with their increased commitments for defence spending," Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a non-resident fellow at The Atlantic Council, told MEE.
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Trump and Sharaa
The US president's relatively swift embrace of Syria's new leader has been one of the standout foreign policy moves of the past year.
Previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani and the leader of an al-Qaeda offshoot, Sharaa has fully assumed the role of a statesman under Turkish tutelage and Gulf funds.
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman first introduced Trump to Sharaa on the sidelines of the May 2025 Riyadh summit, after Trump made the stunning announcement that the US would be lifting decades-long economic sanctions on Syria.
By November, Sharaa was himself in the Oval Office exchanging gifts with Trump.
And just about a year after their very first meeting, Sharaa posted a thank you note on X, showing off the bottles of Trump-branded fragrance the US president sent him as a top-up.
Trump, Turkey and Nato: What's at stake at the Ankara summit? Read More »
"That relationship has really delivered remarkable dividends, I think, for Syria, so far as it relates to the level of political attention that Trump has devoted" to the country, Will Todman, chief of staff of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told MEE.
"The fact that Trump has been so willing to see Syria in a new light, and to see the potential for Syria" is alone a win for the Syrians, he added.
"At the moment I think the number one demand from the Syrian side is for Syria to be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and that's something that seems like it's coming."
That's because the push has come from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
"While Syria does need to make more progress in a variety of areas... the grounds for the SST designation in US law no longer apply and the listing remains a significant barrier to achieving the Administration and congressional priority of giving Syria a chance to succeed," they wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week.
For Trump's part, he may very well use the meeting to bring up his highly contentious suggestion last month of having Syria take on the role of disarming Hezbollah in Lebanon - a notion that Abercrombie-Winstanley found laughable.
"I couldn't believe it when I heard it," she told MEE. "I do expect Sharaa to be diplomatic with it, but [it's] very clear that this is not something that should be welcomed by anyone, Syrian, Lebanese, or otherwise."
Todman said Sharaa has "no interest whatsoever" in getting involved in Lebanon militarily - especially when his own country is still so fractured.
"It would immediately echo the past Syrian occupation of Lebanon, which would conjure up very negative feelings among Lebanese," he told MEE. "In terms of capacity, he's still struggling with the security situation in Syria. He's not in control of all of Syrian territory."
Trump is expected to hold a press conference from Ankara on Wednesday before he flies back to Washington, during which, true to form, he may reveal some of the more intimate discussions from his meetings on the sidelines of the Nato summit.
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