An inspiring meeting with His Highness Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini, Aga Khan V, whose bold and enlightened leadership carries forward an enduring thread of importance in the tapestry of tolerance and peace. Through his Ismaili community and the Aga Khan Development Network, faith becomes service: schools, clinics, and opportunity where they matter most. Leadership measured not in words, but in lives lifted, in a region in search of itself.

History rarely announces its turning points; it stitches them quietly. Ankara returning Zilkan to Baghdad by agreed mechanism and timeline is one such thread: Iraqi sovereignty and Turkish security, both served. What looks like chaos from afar is a region weaving its own order.

Nothing surpasses thoughtful dialogue and debate among intelligent, experienced minds who share the same vision and desire for calm and peace.

Guided by leadership and bound by a shared vision — Iraq and Syria weave together a tapestry of cooperation, stability, and shared prosperity for their peoples.

A valued conversation with Saudi Foreign Minister HH Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. Our message is steady and clear: the United States stands with the Kingdom as a partner in security and stability. In moments of regional turbulence, enduring friendships matter most. 🇺🇸🇸🇦

Pleased to join President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and First Lady Emine Erdoğan, host and Turkish legend Hamdi Ulukaya with his elegant wife, Louise, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in New York City last night to celebrate 100 years of enduring partnership between the United States and Türkiye. For a century, our nations have stood together—strengthening NATO, advancing regional security, expanding trade, and creating opportunity for millions. From the battlefield to the boardroom, we have achieved so much over a century of friendship—with an even brighter future ahead. 🇺🇸🇹🇷

Our masterful Secretary of State @SecRubio seeking an algorithm to a complicated piece of the Middle East rubiks cube with the courageous Iraqi Prime Minister @AliFalihAlzaidy. state.gov/releases/office-of…

Honored to celebrate #Freedom250 in Istanbul with our friends and partners. 250 years ago, our Founding Fathers wove a new tapestry of freedom, unity, and opportunity — just as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk would later do here in Türkiye. What a privilege to stand among such incredible guests and reflect on all that our two great nations can achieve together in the years ahead.

Honored to meet with President Erdogan today at Beştepe. As we mark America's 250th anniversary this year and look ahead to a century of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the United States: this alliance has never been stronger. Turkey and the U.S. share deep bonds — as NATO Allies, economic partners, and friends who have stood together through decades of shared history. Today's discussion reaffirmed our shared commitment to regional security, economic cooperation, and the enduring partnership between our two nations. 🇺🇸🇹🇷

Honored to welcome so many friends, partners, and colleagues of U.S. Embassy in Ankara as we celebrated America's 250th birthday. Our Independence Day celebration was more than a commemoration of our nation's history. It was a celebration of the enduring partnership between the United States and Türkiye, and of the people-to-people ties that continue to strengthen our Alliance. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this memorable celebration. 🇺🇸🇹🇷 #Freedom250

Met late into the night with Syrian Foreign Minister @AsaadHShaibani . In the hours when capitals grow quiet, the real work of statecraft continues. He is tireless, clear-eyed, and serious about lowering the temperature in a region that has little margin for miscalculation. Diplomacy is not theater. It is the patient alignment of interests before events turn against us. Grateful for the candor of the exchange, and for a counterpart who understands that restraint and dialogue are also forms of strength.

A warm welcome to Congressman Issa, a House member for two decades — including as Chairman of Oversight and Government Reform — and as a senior member of the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees. We are honored to host a veteran, a bold and successful entrepreneur, and a legendary legislator who has an intimate understanding of this region and has made major contributions to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East over the past two decades.

We are dismayed by the renewed escalation in Suwayda. Nearly a year ago, alongside Syrian Foreign Minister al-Shaibani and Jordanian Foreign Minister Safadi, we put our signatures to a trilateral roadmap for peace in Suwayda: a path to the dignified reintegration of the province into Syria, with the full rights and the full obligations of citizenship for its Druze community. That path remains the only one that leads anywhere but back to grief. Syria’s Druze are a people of noble and ancient history. Yet where governance is absent, gangs fill the void, and today a very few with toxic motives are turning on their own, men such as Atef Hunaidi, arbitrarily detained and driven from his home. Our team is in contact with Mr. Hunaidi and with others caught in this campaign of intracommunal violence. Cooperation among the Druze, the Arab tribes, and the neighboring nations along Suwayda’s borders must continue to be built in threads of tolerance and understanding: one nation and one people, of diverse and respected cultures and faiths, interacting through communal dialogue and empathy, and leaving the kinetic, knee-jerk reflex where it belongs, in the hands of the nation-state alone. The Syrian government has begun to confront the grave crimes committed by its forces last July and to hold those responsible to account before its courts. That is the direction of hope, and it must continue. The only way forward is a dialogue that delivers accountability, restores security, and opens the road for the displaced to return and for what was destroyed to be rebuilt. This is a sensitive hour, in the neighborhood and in the world. We urge upon all parties the two disciplines that peace has always asked of the brave: restraint in action, and communication in earnest. The alternative to talking is not victory. It is only the next round of mourning.

STATEMENT OF THE AMBASSADOR On the U.S. Treasury Designation of September 4, 2026   Today the United States Department of the Treasury designated a single Türkiye-based financial institution and two of its subsidiaries for their role in moving funds on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps–Qods Force. We want to place this measure in its proper context, because context is everything, and because the relationship between the United States and the Republic of Türkiye is far larger than any one institution or any one day. Throughout this process, Treasury and its Turkish counterparts have been in direct and continuous contact. The action is what a great power owes to the integrity of the international financial system. Washington’s maximum-pressure campaign against the Iranian regime depends upon closing, one by one, the channels through which Tehran launders the proceeds of its activities. This designation is aimed at the conduct of one entity, not at a nation, not at a banking system, and not at an ally. It is enforcement, precise and lawful, and the United States makes no apology for protecting the architecture on which honest commerce everywhere depends. It would be a serious error, here or in Ankara, to read this narrow measure as a judgment upon Türkiye. It is nothing of the kind. Türkiye’s own interest lies in a banking system that is clean, trusted, and beyond the reach of those who would abuse it, and no nation has a greater stake than Türkiye itself in ensuring that its institutions are not turned to purposes their own government would never sanction. The health of the Turkish financial system is not in question; the conduct of one institution was. For that reason we note with respect that Türkiye has moved as a sovereign partner should. Rather than treat an uncomfortable disclosure as an affront, the Turkish authorities have engaged to clarify the ambiguities surrounding this matter and to inaugurate a process that will strengthen transparency going forward. That is not the reflex of a state with something to conceal; it is the conduct of a mature partner determined that its own house be, and be seen to be, in order. Cooperation of this kind is worth more to the alliance than any assurance offered under pressure, because it is offered freely. Allies of long standing do not measure their friendship by the absence of difficulty. Between serious partners, friction is not the exception to the relationship but a recurring feature of it, and the test is never whether a difficult matter arises but whether it is met with candor and resolved with dignity. The stability of the region, and the security of the routes and commerce on which both our peoples rely, the United States and Türkiye stand on the same side, as they have through harder trials than this. We are confident, therefore, that this measure will in time be seen not as a strain upon the partnership but as an instance of its strength: an American action taken after great deliberation, a Turkish response to address with timely and proper investigation, and a shared commitment to transparency that leaves both our nations, and the alliance between them, stronger than before. We will continue this work together, in the same spirit of candor and common purpose that has carried the relationship this far.

Thank you Syria.

Director Kash Patel is one of the great operative partners of this era: strategy at the White House, tactics with special-mission units, diplomacy that produces captures, and leadership of small teams in every theater that matters. His return as the ninth FBI Director was not a beginning, it was a man coming back to the hunt. He learned the courtroom as a Florida public defender, then prosecuted terrorists at Justice and served as DOJ liaison to JSOC. On the House Intelligence Committee he wrote the Nunes memo. At the NSC he ran counterterrorism — senior ISIS and al-Qaeda leaders off the board, Americans brought home. He served as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, overseeing all seventeen intelligence community agencies, and at Defense, he ran the Secretary’s shop. Back at the Bureau he put agents on violent crime and the homeland. Homicides down on the order of 20 percent. Arrests doubled. Gangs and Tren de Aragua smashed. Thousands of children found. Predators and traffickers taken. Fentanyl seized by the ton. Spies arrested. More Ten Most Wanted pulled in than in the prior four years combined. And he did what Washington said could not be done: in partnership with Ambassador David Perdue, made great strides in Beijing on fentanyl precursors and scam compounds. Joint work with China, the Gulf, Thailand, Cambodia, and others. With Türkiye — through Turkish authorities and his disciplined and empowered teams a $3.7 billion Medicare alleged fraud fugitive was taken on Turkish soil and flown home. Through that same Turkish cooperation, one of the most wanted terrorists, Mohammad Al-Saadi, was arrested and transferred into U.S. custody. Diplomacy as targeting. No sanctuary. That is Patel. Bespoke teams. Hard targets. New partners who finally showed up. America safer because he came back.

Productive meeting today with Türkiye’s Ambassador to the United States Sedat Önal. Grateful for Türkiye’s continued partnership as we work together to advance regional stability, security, and shared prosperity.

Great meeting with Syrian Chargé d’Affaires Mohammad Qanatri — congratulations on a week of historic accomplishments for Syria.

Always enjoy speaking with great minds on a difficult topic.