By Leo Marchandon and Gianluca Lo Nostro
July 7 (Reuters) - Ukraine will favour AI systems it can run on its own servers, a senior ministry official said on Tuesday, as wartime Kyiv seeks to keep digital tools for government services, businesses and the military from depending on remote systems that providers can restrict or switch off.
ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) - Five NATO members are projected to meet the alliance's goal of spending 3.5% of gross domestic product on core defence already in 2026, according to updated NATO data published on Tuesday ahead of a leaders' summit in Ankara, which also showed some members are still expected to spend only about 2%.
At a summit in The Hague last year, NATO leaders pledged to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defence items such as weapons and troops by 2035 - up from a previous goal of 2%.
By Yamam Al Shaar, Kinda Makieh and Clotaire Achi
DAMASCUS, July 7 (Reuters) - Two bombs exploded on Tuesday near a hotel in Damascus where French President Emmanuel Macron spent the night, wounding 18 people and overshadowing the first visit to Syriaby a European Union head of state since Bashar al-Assad was toppled.
Macron, whose motorcade left the hotel shortly before the blasts, pressed ahead with his visit, meeting President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the presidential palace. His office said he had not heard the blasts.
By John Irish and Lili Bayer
ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) - France and Britain will outline plans for a multinational maritime mission in the Strait of Hormuz at talks between NATO and Gulf Arab foreign ministers on Tuesday, but diplomats say Iran's rejection of the initiative makes it unlikely to break the deadlock over the vital waterway.
ANKARA, Turkey, July 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and he hoped the war in Ukraine would soon be settled.
"I had a very good talk with President Putin," Trump said during a meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO summit in Turkey.
(Amends language in headline)
ANKARA, Turkey, July 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said he would lift sanctions off Turkey and make a decision on a potential sale of F-35s to Ankara as he began a meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at a NATO summit.
"We're going to be taking the sanctions off," Trump told reporters when asked about the measures imposed under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
By Sabine Siebold
ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) - The United States will establish a maintenance facility for Lockheed Martin's advanced PAC-3 air defence missile in Europe, a senior official said on Tuesday, adding Washington was not ruling out production of the missile abroad.
Speaking to reporters at a defence industry gathering on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Michael Duffey said it was not yet clear in which country the maintenance plant would be built.
By Sabine Siebold
ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) - NATO will launch a strategic airlift fleet of Airbus A400M transport planes and add one aircraft to its existing fleet of A330 MRTT tanker planes, Secretary General Mark Rutte said on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Ankara on Tuesday.
He was speaking at a defence industry gathering where allies unveiled arms deals worth billions of dollars to show they are heeding U.S. calls to spend more to defend Europe before joining President Donald Trump for the summit starting in the evening.
By Jonathan Spicer
ANKARA, July 7 (Reuters) - Canada wants more countries to back its global defence bank initiative before it announces a roster of founding nations, foreign minister Anita Anand said in an interview on the sidelines of the NATO leaders' summit in Ankara on Tuesday.
Mark Carney's government has been promoting the multilateral Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) and had been aiming to unveil around 10 national backers at the NATO summit, the country's lead negotiator told Reuters last week.
