Ankara

[instrumental music] Hello, welcome to the program, I'm Adrian Finighan.

The leaders of NATO member states are meeting in Ankara ostensibly to discuss increasing defense investment and long-term military support for Ukraine.

But the Iran war is hanging over the gathering.

A ceasefire agreement is in place between Tehran and Washington, but major challenges need to be overcome before a final deal is reached.

In the run up to the NATO summit, the US had called on European allies to help it secure the strait, but some members ruled out any involvement, arguing that NATO's mandate does not extend to the Middle East.

Others went as far as to say that the war had nothing to do with the bloc.

So could the divide between the US and its allies be bridged in Ankara, and what could it mean for the future of NATO? We'll talk to our guests in just a moment.

But first, this report from Imogen Kimber.

Puerto Rico, you have Santería, and around the world you have different places where curses and, and working with demons and that is commonplace.

Uh, in Turkey, one client told me that you can go in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, to the bad section of town and literally, uh, just pay someone.

I, I don't like my ex-husband.

Y-y-- uh, would you curse him? Sure.

So they have announced this co-chair partnership with Turkey-based Pegasus Airlines.

So this is going to see co-chair to five different European destinations, including London, Moscow, Athens, Ankara and Zurich, and then expand to more than 100 routes between Asia and Europe with the combined network.

So the chief commercial officer of AirAsia has said that this co-chair agreement is important.

It's a different approach.

Interesting, those choices.

I mean, the fact that through Bahrain it wanted to go to London to Gatwick, but through Pegasus it has to go to Stansted, which, you know, that's not really a primary choice.

And you look at the other airports that it's got in Moscow and Ankara as well.

But, you know, I think it's just a low risk choice for them to be able to test out the waters, see how passengers respond and whether there actually is the demand that they're hoping for.

On Sunday, there will be three matches.

Gençler Birliği Ankara team will be at home against Kasımpaşa.

Ahmet Spor from Diyarbakır will host Başakşehir.

And Galatasaray on Sunday will be at home against Kocaeli Spor.

NATO has started trying to close some of those gaps, and the most substantial change that we've seen came back in July.

At the Ankara summit, the alliance upgraded its Baltic Air Policing operation into an actual air defense mission, giving pilots more authority to engage through NATO's military chain of command, rather than having them wait for approval from whichever capital governs their airspace.

Estonia's then-Defense Minister Hanno Pevko weighed in that the Combined Air Operations Center would now have the ability to authorize engagements in most cases unless a country has specifically imposed their own restrictions.

That is genuinely a big step forward for the alliance, and it's worth treating it as such.

Quote, given this consistent pattern of behavior, Turkey is clearly working to inherit the mantle of revolutionary Iran as the premier Islamic empire in the Middle East and Africa.

Ankara is replacing Tehran's destabilized Shi'a proxy network with a far more potent state-based Sunni framework." The evidence is documented across four continents.

In Sudan, Turkey, they maintain a military partnership with the Sudanese armed forces.

They operate in direct violation of a standing UN arms embargo.

And then in Libya, Turkey works through political factions in Tripoli to anchor permanent military bases.

Then across Somalia, Ankara has built defense capabilities and secured trade corridors through established Islamic networks.

In Gaza, close ideological alignment with Hamas.

Well, that positions Turkey as the indispensable ally regional broker.

For further information, see Statistics South Africa and Reuters.

Turkey is assessing new United States sanctions targeting Iran-related networks that include Turkish-linked entities, with Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek confirming Ankara has taken note of the measures.

The government has announced neither retaliation nor a change in policy.

The sanctions matter because Turkey combines extensive commercial relationships across the Middle East with membership of NATO and deep economic links to Western markets.

Measures directed at Iran can therefore create financial and compliance pressures well beyond their immediate targets.

Ankara's response illustrates how sanctions have become instruments with regional reach, forcing countries connected to competing economic and security networks to navigate the consequences of geopolitical confrontation.

For further information, see U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, and Reuters.

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And this is just when you arrived in Turkey, right? So straight away, from the very beginning, you knew that this is not going to be a happy home.

exactly and then that that was basically in first couple of hours because when you're coming to Turkey at that time Ankara for example for myself going to you know after arrival you're going to the UNHCR building and then you're waiting there you register yourself as a refugee and that was just a couple of hours within my arrival in Turkey.

And then they will give you a letter with a city allocated to you and you have 24 hours to go there and introduce yourself to their immigration office in that city, which in my case was Denizli, a small city in south of Turkey.

I think the biggest city would be Antalya or Izmir if people may know that but it was a quite different city for me going there finding a house finding a work finding a you know any smallest things that i needed to for my life was quite dangerous and quite impossible Even I had those words like when I wanted to get a house, they would say, no, you're like, you know, you're kind of the kids of your, you're like evils.