“The genie is out of the bottle”. Ankara discusses a Europe without NATO

This sentence, uttered by the Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to the Financial Times, summarizes the view of Türkiye regarding the changing global geopolitics in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s comments in the last few weeks.
This sentence is preceded by “Türkiye would want to be part of any new European security architecture if NATO unravels.”
One sentence before that, the Turkish Foreign Minister says, The US president’s actions are “a wake-up call for us to unite and design our own center of gravity.”
The “us” here is Europe, which he assumes will now include Türkiye with the latest developments.
Fidan, who directed the Turkish intelligence MİT for thirteen years, and now as foreign minister, has been instrumental in shaping current security and foreign policies, is known for his discretion and for not sharing anything with the public that he has not disclosed earlier to President Tayyip Erdoğan.
From his remarks, we can infer that the possibility of “NATO’s unraveling” is being discussed at the highest levels of the state in Ankara, and it has already been voiced in some European capitals.

Europe with or without NATO

Ankara believes that since NATO was founded against Russia, even if Trump doesn’t rain as much as he thunders, even if he promises to protect EU members against Russia in exchange for them buying American weapons, nothing will ever be the same in NATO anymore, that the vase has cracked.
This is why Türkiye is preparing to put the possibility on its agenda (in the words of one of my sources) the option of a European security “with or without NATO.” (I highly recommend reading “The EU’s security future without the US: a strategic turning point” by senior diplomatic commentator Yusuf Kanlı).
“Don’t be misunderstood,” said another source of mine, “there is no scenario work or planning yet, but this possibility is naturally being discussed in light of recent developments, even though we don’t believe that NATO will disintegrate so easily.”
Fidan’s talk about “being part of the new European security architecture” is based on this perception.

Does Europe want it?

So, Türkiye wants to be a part of Europe, a member of the European Union through the ongoing geopolitical transformation, and Erdoğan says “European security without Türkiye is unthinkable”, but does the EU want this?
For years, Türkiye has already seen that it can be frustrated at any moment by its NATO ally, the United States – most notably over the support given to the outlawed PKK extensions in Syria. https://yetkinreport.com/en/2025/03/05/will-erdogan-untie-or-cut-the-pkks-knot-in-syria/ Now it is the turn of European countries to have the same concern. In that sense, Europe is adopting concerns similar to those of Türkiye, but keeping its doors closed to it.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who was reprimanded by Russian President Vladimir Putin for “forgetting Napoleon”, excluded  Türkiye from the Ukraine meeting in Paris; a country that has been in talks with both Russia and Ukraine from the beginning.
Reducing Türkiye’s integration with the EU to a mere security and defense industry cooperation, to a mere trade partnership, and to link the expansion of the democratic space to the PKK’s disarmament will also lead to new problems. However, if the recent move of the Turkish government to solve the PKK problem succeeds, that will be a relief for Türkiye with or without the EU. The Kurdish issue is like a genie in the Turkish bottle.

When the genie is out of the bottle

Fidan’s remarks about the future of Türkiye in NATO and its will to remain in the European security architecture “with or without NATO” should be taken seriously.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown that the EU cannot assert political power without US military protection. European countries, which have prospered for decades without relying on the US for defense budgets, are now discussing the concept of “strategic autonomy” – a concept they have been criticizing Ankara for years until recently – as a way out of their dependence on the US.
Fidan’s definition of “the genie is out of the bottle” fits the general outlook. Since we cannot put it back in the bottle, we need a new bottle. And Europe is looking for that bottle in Turkey.