Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte on April 22 visited Aselsan (ASELS), Turkey’s premier defence electronics producer. The visit formed part of a tour arranged ahead of the defence alliance’s upcoming Ankara Summit, scheduled for July 7-8.

In 2017, after then Dutch PM Rutte’s government barred Turkish ministers from campaigning in Rotterdam, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, famously denounced the Dutch authorities as “Nazi remnants” and “fascists”.

Laying on the “games of tension” prior to elections

Historical context suggests that these diplomatic confrontations and spats are less about long-term foreign policy and more about “games of tension”, angry standoffs staged by politicians for domestic political gain.

The so-called 2017 crisis in relations between the governments of Turkey and the Netherlands erupted just days before high-stakes votes in both countries. Dutch politicians were campaigning for a general election while Turkey was moving towards what became its infamous constitutional referendum, which resulted in a shift to the current presidential system, defanging the parliament in the process.

For Rutte, a firm stance against Turkish ministerial rallies on the campaign trail allowed him to outflank the far-right populist Geert Wilders and project an image of a decisive leader protecting Dutch sovereignty.

Simultaneously, for the Turkish government, the image of “Christian Europe” blocking Turkish ministers provided powerful ammunition for a nationalist “Yes” campaign, framing the referendum as a struggle for Turkish honour against foreign meddling.

Enthusiastic handshakes at private meetings

This cycle of calculated outrage followed by a pragmatic pivot to defence cooperation underscores the transactional nature of modern geopolitics, where “Nazi remnants” rhetoric on TV can easily turn to the gladhanding of alliance at private meetings.

In 2024, Turkey’s government provided formal support for Rutte’s appointment to his current Nato post. In a private meeting held on April 26 of that year at the Vahdettin Mansion in Istanbul where Rutte secured Erdogan’s support.

Tensions with Israel are ahead

This year, Israel will hold a general election before, or on, a deadline of October 27. A snap poll is also on the cards.

Last week, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his longlasting minister Israel Katz, who currently serves as defence minister, launched their election campaign, with the launch including some targeting of Erdogan on X.

In the coming months, the script demands that ‘tensions’ will rise. The Erdogan government is never stingy when it comes to laying on tensions for the media to headline during its election campaigns.

In the field of reality, Turkey still allows Israel to meet half its crude oil demand via the Baku-Tbilis-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. Azerbaijani oil is piped to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, from where it is shipped to the Israelis.

“Defence industrial revolution”

“Turkey has gone through a defence industrial revolution,” Nato chief Rutte, who once served as the face of the so-called ‘EU-Turkish friction’, remarked during his speech at Aselsan.

“In a more dangerous world, we must produce together, innovate together and buy from each other,” he added.

As Rutte met with Aselsan’s engineers, the “fascism” rhetoric of 2017 felt like a relic of a different era.

Last month, Reuters also described Turkey as “an emerging leader in the global defence industry that ​has the ⁠[Nato] alliance's second-largest army” while, on the other hand, noting that the country lacks its own fully-fledged air defences.

Among other issues, Turkey’s ageing F-16 fighter jet fleet is another awkward story for those in PR and the media pushing the “defense industrial revolution” angle.

At the end of the day, Turkey is a generous Nato member that allocates more than enough to its defence budget and provides its human resources wherever the alliance needs them.

Booming share price

Rutte’s visit meant another boost for the Aselsan share price, which has nourished the indices at Borsa Istanbul for longer than a year.

In January, the company became the first Turkish firm to cross the $30bn market value threshold. It now ranks as the fifth most valuable defence firm in Europe following the meteoric rise of its share price across last year.

In the 2024 ranking compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), Aselsan climbed to 47th place globally, with annual arms revenues surging 24% y/y to $3.5bn.