NATO's European leaders aim to ?convince Donald Trump on Wednesday to re-commit to the military alliance at a summit in Ankara after the U.S. President revived disputes over the Iran war ?and Greenland and launched a new wave of strikes on Iran. On arriving in the Turkish capital on Tuesday, Trump took swipes at allies for not standing by the U.S. on the Iran war and said he might have boycotted the meeting had it not been for his friendship with the host, President Tayyip Erdogan.

The U.S. then unleashed new military strikes on Iran and revoked a licence allowing Iran to sell oil in response to ?attacks on three tankers. It was the latest blow to a fragile ceasefire agreement in a war that is deeply unpopular in Europe. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte defended the new U.S. strikes as "absolutely necessary" and played down Trump's disappointment with allies as "isolated cases". "When you ?have a ceasefire and Iran is basically violating the ceasefire, I think it is totally crucial that the U.S.

forcefully react," Rutte told reporters before the summit. NATO on Tuesday had sought to ?demonstrate that its European members were heeding Trump’s calls to spend more on their own defence and rely less on the U.S. by unveiling a raft of arms deals worth at least $50 ?billion. Trump, who has harshly criticised NATO during both his first and second terms in office, said he was “very disappointed” with the alliance and that the U.S. was not “treated well" during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

“Why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and they're not there for us? We've always been there for them,” Trump said in an appearance on Tuesday alongside Erdogan. Trump has accused European nations of failing ?to let U.S. forces use their airspace and bases on their territories during the war. European officials have said they largely honoured their commitments to U.S. forces, despite not having been ?consulted about a conflict that roiled their economies.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)