NATO Summit in Ankara: Diplomacy inside, detentions outside.

The first day of the NATO Summit in Ankara made headlines not only for the meetings between leaders, but also for arrests and protests happening just beyond the summit perimeter.

Academic Sibel Özbudun and writer Temel Demirer, detained in pre-summit operations, were released under a travel ban following questioning — both face investigation for "membership in an armed terrorist organisation." The evidence listed in their files: journals that published Demirer's writing, his contacts with certain individuals, and in Özbudun's case, panels, forums and meetings she attended.

In Eskişehir, 15 people — including members of the Labour Party and Labour Youth — were detained during preparations for an anti-NATO protest organised by the Labour and Democracy Platform.

Inside the summit hall, a different agenda. President Erdoğan met with Donald Trump and expressed confidence that a positive decision on Turkey's reintegration into the F-35 programme was forthcoming. He also confirmed he raised the supply of US-made F110 engines for Turkey's domestically developed KAAN fighter jet. Beyond defence procurement, Ankara's summit agenda included the war in Ukraine, Gaza and the evolving Iran-US relationship.

The juxtaposition is not incidental. Turkey is simultaneously hosting NATO's most strategically significant summit in years and detaining academics and writers on the eve of it. Both images belong to the same country, on the same day.

In international human rights law, the ECtHR has consistently held that preventive detentions targeting peaceful assembly — particularly when timed around major political events — require exceptionally strong justification. The cases of Özbudun and Demirer, where attendance at panels and publication in certain journals constitute evidence, sit uneasily against that standard.

The Ankara summit places Turkey at the centre of Western security architecture. The detentions place it at the centre of a different conversation — one about the cost of that centrality.

Are security measures taken ahead of international summits a legitimate precaution — or do they risk restricting the exercise of democratic rights?