Turkish, Dutch, US defense chiefs hold talks on sidelines of key NATO meeting

Member country flags are placed on the first day of the NATO Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Brussels, Belgium. [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]

Turkiye’s top defense official held separate talks on Friday with his Dutch and US counterparts on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels, according the Turkish National Defense Ministry, Anadolu reports.

In the meetings, National Defense Minister Yasar Guler discussed bilateral and regional defense, security, and defense industry cooperation with the Netherlands’ Kajsa Ollagren and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the ministry said in a statement.

READ: Turkiye foreign policy in the new era

Defense Minister Ollagren also “congratulated Minister Guler on his new position and conveyed her wishes for success,” it added.

The talks were held on the sidelines of a crucial two-day meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) at NATO Headquarters, chaired by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. The gathering assembled defense ministers from allied countries.

On the first day of the meeting, Guler also met with his Lithuanian, French, and British counterparts, as well as Stoltenberg.

READ: Turkiye summons Swiss envoy after protesters burn Erdogan’s effigy

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.