Erdogan at Inaugural National Security Conference: Turkiye Is Now a 'Playmaker,' Not a Follower of Others' Scenarios
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted the first National Security Conference at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on June 9, asserting that Turkiye has transformed from a country playing assigned roles into a regional "playmaker" through executive-presidency reforms, cross-border military operations in Iraq and Syria, and defence industry self-sufficiency. Erdogan framed the 'terror-free Turkiye' initiative as a strategic vision beyond security policy and warned that cyberattacks and artificial intelligence now fall within the scope of national security. The conference follows Erdogan's use of Turkiye's NATO summit hosting earlier in June to project regional influence.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chaired the inaugural National Security Conference at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on June 9, an event organised by the Office of the Secretary-General of the National Security Council. The conference was established on Erdogan's instructions to deepen knowledge on national security and align the views of administrators and relevant institutions.
Erdogan described a fundamental shift in Turkiye's security posture since his Justice and Development Party governments broke from the era of "military tutelage," when the National Security Council was tasked with matters as peripheral as "inspection of work of cinema and music." He pointed to the executive presidency system inaugurated in 2018 as having streamlined governance and accelerated decision-making in security crises. Cross-border operations in Iraq and Syria, he said, "shattered the glass ceiling" of depending on other countries for security instructions or weaponry: "Turkiye is no longer a country delivered a role in scenarios of others. It is now a country writing its own stories, a playmaker in its region."
Erdogan framed the ongoing "terror-free Turkiye" initiative -- aimed at ending the PKK's armed campaign -- as part of a broader strategic vision "beyond a mere security policy." He cited more than 40 years of counterterrorism efforts against the PKK, the 2016 coup attempt by military infiltrators of the Gulenist Terror Group as the moment that reoriented the security paradigm, and the subsequent expansion of cross-border military operations as the foundation of the new posture.
On emerging threats, Erdogan identified cyberattacks that can disable banking systems and artificial intelligence as falling directly within national security scope: "On battlefields, software plays as decisive a role as tanks and missiles." He said AI "accelerates the decision-making process" but "harbors serious risks" and must be treated as a security issue "with ethical, legal and social dimensions." The conference came four days after Erdogan used Turkiye's NATO summit hosting on June 5 to project regional influence while managing Western scrutiny of domestic policy.