Türkiye hits NATO defense spending target

ANKARA

Türkiye has achieved the NATO target of allocating at least 2 percent of its annual gross domestic product to defense spending.

A record 23 of NATO’s 32 member nations are hitting the Western military alliance’s defense spending target this year, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier this week, as Russia’s war in Ukraine has raised the threat of expanding conflict in Europe.

NATO members agreed last year to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.

The estimated figure is a nearly fourfold increase from 2021, when only six nations were meeting the goal. That was before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The data revealed that Türkiye, with a ratio of 2.09 percent, has met the target. Over the past decade, Türkiye’s average hovered around 1.58 percent, peaking at 1.86 percent in 2020, but it is now anticipated to remain above the 2 percent threshold in the forthcoming years.

With the annual increase in Turkish defense expenditures noteworthy, the country recorded a 44 percent rise compared to the previous year, placing it third after the Czech Republic and Romania in terms of defense spending increase.

NATO also reported that Türkiye maintains the alliance's second-largest army with 481,000 military personnel, following the United States, which leads with 1.3 million personnel.

Stoltenberg emphasized that the data demonstrates how European allies and Canada contribute to the collective burden-sharing to protect all allies. He noted, “NATO allies will augment their defense spending by 18 percent this year. This marks the most significant increase in decades.”