ANKARA, Nov 8 : Turkey’s defense spending in 2025 will reach USD 37.5 billion, which will bring the country to the “second tier with a large volume” in terms of the scale of the defense economy among NATO countries, the pro-government newspaper Turkiye reported on Saturday.
At the summit in June, NATO members pledged to allocate 5% of GDP to defense by 2035. The bloc will review the trajectory and balance of military spending in 2029. Turkey spent USD 17.2 billion on defense in 2022 and USD 28.2 billion in 2023, the report revealed.
This way, Ankara will again exceed NATO’s “2% criterion” of GDP which means an increase in Turkey’s status in the alliance’s defense spending structure, as estimated by the newspaper. The Turkish government plans to allocate USD 51.5 billion to defense and security in 2026, the newspaper reported, citing Vice President Cevdet Y?lmaz.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Europe of not doing enough to defend itself. He has criticized the European allies for spending too little on defense and demanded they increase spending to 5% of GDP. At the June NATO summit in The Hague, the allies agreed to raise their spending target to 3.5%, with another 1.5% to be allocated to related areas, such as cyber security and crucial road infrastructure.
(UNI)
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