NATO must strengthen its ties with the Gulf

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NATO leaders gathered in Ankara, Turkiye, on Tuesday and Wednesday for a major summit. In the run-up to the gathering, it was clear what the No. 1 issue on the agenda would be: burden sharing. US President Donald Trump has been pressuring European allies to invest more in defense and develop concrete plans to reach new spending targets. In this sense, the outcome of the summit was a success.

But there was another notable aspect of the summit that did not get the attention it deserved: the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, or ICI, was created in 2004, the last time NATO held its summit in Turkiye, to serve as the alliance’s main platform for engaging with Gulf partners. Today, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain participate in the ICI format.

The fact that this meeting was held at a NATO Summit at the foreign ministerial level is significant. It also shows how one member state can upload a policy priority from the national level to the NATO level. Had this summit been held anywhere else other than Turkiye, it is unlikely that the ICI would have met in this format.

While additional dialogue and engagement between NATO and the Gulf states is positive, the practical outcomes of the ICI over the past two decades have been mixed. At times, interest in the platform has ebbed and flowed depending on geopolitical events and the security environment in the Middle East.

Beyond........

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