By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - The Biden administration is looking forward to sitting down with Turkish counterparts during next month's NATO summit in the US capital, the State Department's acting senior official for political affairs said Monday.
"Whether it's at the leader level, or in the interactions between the official delegations, we look forward to continuing our discussions with the Turkish government on a wide range of issues impacting our collective security through the Alliance, but also a range of other security issues on which we've worked closely together in several other regions," John Bass said in response to a question from an Anadolu reporter.
Bass, who served as Washington's ambassador to Ankara from 2014 to 2017, was designated by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to become the State Department's acting under secretary for political affairs in March. He had been serving as the agency's under secretary for management since 2021.
The career diplomat maintained that Türkiye has "long been an important, many would say, essential contributor, to collective security within the Alliance, and remains a close partner of the United States and other allies in dealing with today's security challenges." Bass pointed in particular to Russia, and terrorist organizations, including Daesh/ISIS.
NATO is slated to hold its leader-level summit in Washington from July 9-11 to celebrate the transatlantic alliance's 75th anniversary.
Bass said he expects allies will address ongoing "ongoing efforts and success in increasing, improving, strengthening our capabilities to provide for our collective defense in an age of an evolving set of threats that transcend those that the alliance's original members faced when the Washington Treaty was signed 75 years ago."
That includes ensuring continued "robust investments" in defense spending, as well as ensuring Ukraine defeats "the ongoing Russian war of aggression."