US President Donald Trump has publicly confirmed for the first time that he plans to travel to Turkey this year, weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he would attend the NATO summit in Ankara.
“We’ll be going to Turkey,” Trump told reporters Friday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, without naming the summit or giving a date.
The visit is expected to take place for the NATO meeting of heads of state and government scheduled for July 7 and 8. Rubio told a congressional hearing on June 3 that Trump would attend the summit.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had said a day earlier that Trump had repeatedly indicated during telephone calls with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that he planned to attend.