WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidents have taken secret overseas trips in the past for security reasons, with schedules and logistics kept classified until after the fact to protect the commander in chief.

But not like the one President Donald Trump took in July.

After a NATO summit in Turkey, Trump stowed away in an airport catering container to slip into another plane while Air Force One — filled with White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters — was sent into the sky essentially as a decoy, just in case Iran made good on a credible threat of an attack.

Upon stopping in Britain, Trump sneaked back aboard the presidential plane undetected and scoffed when asked about potential danger.

“If I go, you go. Right?” he told reporters — gliding past the fact that if the plane had been shot down, the president wouldn’t have been aboard.

That Trump’s whereabouts were concealed then, and for weeks afterward, is believed to be unprecedented — even in a modern world where security-related subterfuge is not uncommon.

“We have absolutely seen the president fly on unmarked or decoy planes before, into Iraq, Afghanistan, other war-zone-like places,” said Garrett M. Graff, author of “Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die.”

“But this was an ongoing secret that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.”

The White House hasn’t denied reports,

but also isn’t providing details

The president’s flight out of Turkey made headlines at the time because Trump had arrived aboard a luxury jet gifted by Qatar, which was not equipped with some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems found on older presidential jets.

He ended up traveling in a smaller government aircraft from Turkey to the United Kingdom. There, he sneaked back onto the decoy jet, descended from the aircraft and boarded the Qatari plane.

The White House hasn’t confirmed reporting on the extraordinary lengths officials took to protect Trump, which were first reported by The Washington Post, but administration officials haven’t denied it.

Instead, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, relied on similar wording that he used during the trip itself. “As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats,” Cheung said in a statement Monday.

Past presidents put themselves in dangerous areas

Presidents have regularly tested the confines of their office, pushing their security advisers to visit war zones as a show of American presence and their own leadership. Usually, this happens in the form of trips that aren’t announced until the president is deemed to be out of harm’s way.

What’s different this time is that Trump was covertly separated from the rest of his travelers — including the press pool meant to provide independent coverage of the president and his actions — and, instead of informing the public about what occurred once the risk had passed, the White House still hasn’t fully revealed what took place.

Graff said the presence of the White House press corps is as much about protecting “the presidency and democracy” as it is about covering the story.

“This shows that the White House just fundamentally doesn’t understand how important that role is, for the press corps to be able to provide independent and transparent corroboration about the status and whereabouts of the president of the United States at any given moment,” he said.

Officials have gone to great lengths to keep presidents safe on covert trips before.

In 2023, a motorcade pulled away from the White House around 3:30 a.m. on a Sunday, and President Joe Biden later boarded an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports, and flew to Poland. Biden then took a secret, 10-hour overnight train ride to Kyiv meant to show solidarity with Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.

A press pool at the White House had been expecting a quiet Sunday for Biden in Washington. However, two journalists went to Ukraine with him and documented the trip, capturing images of Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy striding past a memorial to fallen soldiers in Ukraine’s capital as air raid sirens sounded.

In Trump’s first term, he made a secret trip to Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day in 2019, when officials kept a separate press pool and decoy plane in Florida to maintain the illusion that the president was spending the holiday at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Instead, Trump and another group of reporters flew to the sprawling U.S. military base at Bagram, where the president spent more than three hours on the ground serving turkey to troops, giving a speech and meeting with Afghanistan’s then-president, Ashraf Ghani, while journalists documented what was occurring.

When President George W. Bush made his first trip to Iraq in 2003, news was not released until he was in the air on the way back to the United States. President Barack Obama made a furtive nighttime visit to Afghanistan in 2010, when he was meant to be spending the weekend at Camp David. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon visited war zones in Vietnam.

Other risky trips featured presidential subterfuge

President Bill Clinton went secretly from India to Pakistan in 2000, attempting to calm tensions in the disputed Kashmir region. He was seen talking with officials in front of a military plane that he appeared to board. Instead, Clinton ducked around the front of the aircraft to another jet parked nearby.

Both planes took off for Islamabad, as did a third jet painted with the familiar baby blue markings of Air Force One.

Joe Lockhart, a White House press secretary for Clinton, noted that reporters knew the president was on one of the planes, “but not which one.” He said he and other officials had briefed the press pool ahead of time and “although they didn’t know all the details, it was made clear” that Clinton “was not going to travel on the plane they were on.

“There was no attempt to hide anything, much less lie about it later,” Lockhart wrote on social media.

Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, during the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and, after all commercial air traffic was grounded, officials wanted to move him to an undisclosed location.

The full White House traveling press pool flew with Bush from Florida to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, where officials reduced the number of reporters and staff on the plane. Bush and the smaller traveling party next flew to Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base before eventually returning to Washington.

Bush’s location remained secret throughout the day. However, the White House did not suggest that the president was somewhere he was not — unlike when Trump was whisked out of Turkey.

“You can imagine the different ways that this could have gone wrong, where, for a period of time, no one would have been able to independently corroborate the status of the U.S. president, or who was in charge of the U.S. government,” Graff said. “And that’s an incredibly dangerous moment for the world.”

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AP) — Residents in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish-populated southeastern region reacted with a mix of relief, joy and uncertainty on Tuesday after parliament approved a conditional pardon for thousands of Kurdish militants, offering them a potential path toward integration into normal life in Turkey.

Lawmakers on Monday voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation that is aimed at advancing a peace effort between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which waged a long-running insurgency before announcing last year that it would lay down its weapons. The measures, however, will only come into effect after Turkish authorities have verified that the group has fully disarmed.

Residents in Diyarbakir, the region’s main city, expressed hope the new law will bring peace — as well as prosperity to a region that has lagged behind economically.

“I was really very happy. I even applauded (the result) in my own home,” said 70-year-old retiree Ali Akdogan. “The economy will improve, good things will happen, people will start doing business.”

“I believe it will bring peace,” he continued, noting that since the start of the peace process there have been no deaths related to the conflict, which killed thousands of civilians, soldiers and militants over more than four decades.

Hasan Gecti, a 56-year-old shop owner, also said he believes the stability and lack of violence will benefit the region’s people economically and socially but suggested that other matters, such as greater Kurdish rights, have not been addressed.

Among other issues, Kurds have been calling for broader use of their language in education and public services, along with greater political rights, including an end to the government’s practice of ousting elected mayors and replacing them with government-appointed officials.

“Has the Kurdish issue been directly solved? That’s a bit of a question mark. In my opinion, only the terrorism problem has been solved,” Gecti said. “Unfortunately, the Kurdish issue still remains where it is.”

The PKK’s objectives evolved from independence to Kurdish rights

The PKK declared a decision to dissolve itself last year in response to a call from its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The group then staged a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq, where it is based, and announced that it was withdrawing fighters from key locations in Turkey to Iraq.

The PKK launched the insurgency in the 1980s, initially with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the southeast of the country. Over time, the objective evolved into a campaign for autonomy and rights for Kurds within Turkey. Kurds are estimated to make up around 15–20% of Turkey’s population.

The new legislation will suspend some prison sentences for convicted PKK members and postpone ongoing investigations and trials against others for five or 10 years, depending on the severity of the alleged offenses. If no terror-related crime is committed within the time frame, the cases will be dropped.

Turkish media reports said thousands of PKK members are likely to benefit, including those in exile in Europe and those who are based in Iraq and Syria.

Militants convicted of intentional killings and those sentenced to life terms before 2005 are excluded from the bill’s provisions. This applies to Ocalan and other senior PKK figures.

Further reforms needed, Kurdish leaders warn

Mehmet Kaya, head of the Diyarbakir Chamber of Trade and Industry, welcomed the fact that the legislation was passed with an overwhelming majority.

“It signals that violence is ending and the doors of politics are opening,” he said.

However, the law alone does not solve the Kurdish issue and that further reforms will be needed, he added.

“If the step taken from now bring sustainable democratization, social policies, and economic policies develop — which is the expectation — then the region will go through an important phase,” Kaya said.

In a statement carried by the PKK-linked ANF news outlet, the group on Monday described the Turkish legislation as a “beginning” to resolving outstanding issues but “has serious shortcomings and deficiencies.”

It called for Ocalan’s release from prison, for democratic reforms and Kurdish rights.

———

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

President Donald Trump secretly flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on an alternate military aircraft while the White House made it appear that the Republican president was flying on Air Force One, according to a report published by The Washington Post on Monday.

The Post said the operation was prompted by an Iranian assassination threat against Trump. The ruse was carried out as journalists and some White House staff members were led to believe they were on the same plane as the president as he began his journey back to Washington from the annual gathering of NATO country leaders.

The Post cited material reviewed by the newspaper, a U.S. official familiar with the operation and another person with knowledge of the president’s travel. The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the report.

Trump had flown to the summit in a new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted red, white and navy blue jet. But ahead of departing Turkey, he said he would fly partway home on an older-model baby blue Air Force One plane instead.

The president at the time said the new luxury jet was being flown out ahead of his departure from Ankara to give some U.S. troops based in eastern England a chance to check out the new Air Force One.

In Ankara, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras ahead of the plane flying to Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom.

However, according to the Post report, after boarding the legacy Air Force One jet, he was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane — an Air Force C-32A — via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies. Trump flew to Mildenhall on that smaller jet.

The White House did not respond directly to questions about the Post report of the secret operation to whisk Trump out of the country on a third aircraft, or the reported elaborate ruse to make it appear he was on the baby blue Air Force One jet flying to Mildenhall.

“As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The U.S. Secret Service declined to comment. The Air Force, which maintains the fleet of executive travel aircraft, referred questions to the White House.

There have been questions about the safety of the new Qatari-gifted plane

While Trump was in Turkey, the U.S. military conducted a series of large strikes in Iran in retaliation for its attacks on merchant shipping in the region.

The New York Times and CBS News reported last month that intelligence officials had raised concerns about a potential attack on the president or his jet, triggering additional precautions and the decision not to use the newly inaugurated aircraft gifted to Trump by Qatar for the first leg of Trump’s trip home from Ankara.

The swap had spurred questions about the security of the Qatar-provided aircraft, and Trump said last month after the trip that it would undergo additional upgrades.

Cheung on Monday maintained that the new, Qatari-gifted plane was “a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff.”

The new Post report on clandestinely putting Trump on a third aircraft and quietly whisking him out of the country adds a fresh layer to just how seriously concerned U.S. security officials were about the threat against Trump during the ongoing war with Iran.

Paul Eckloff, a former special agent with the Secret Service, said such an unusual move could either reflect actionable intelligence or an abundance of caution given volatility in the region with the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

“I would not say unprecedented, but it is an unusual occurrence,” Eckloff told The Associated Press.

The Post reported that to exit that plane without being seen by those uninvolved in the operation, Trump and several aides stepped aboard an airport catering truck, which was elevated planeside using hydraulics and positioned at a door on the opposite side of Air Force One’s entrance.

The small group of reporters who thought they were traveling with Trump were advised to lower their window shades ahead of takeoff.

After arriving at Mildenhall, news photographers captured images of Trump getting off the presidential plane — suggesting he reboarded Air Force One out of sight of the pack of journalists who thought they were traveling with him.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called for a congressional investigation.

“It is unprecedented and it is surreal,” he said Monday on CNN, calling the incident “downright scary.”

After the brief visit to the base at Mildenhall, Trump boarded the new Air Force One aircraft to fly the rest of the way to Washington.

During a gaggle with reporters aboard the aircraft, Trump was asked directly if there was any credible threats on Air Force One by Iran.

“Well, I have a threat all the time. I’m number one on their list before you,” Trump said. He added to the traveling reporters, “But if I go, you go.”

___

AP writers Josh Boak, Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin contributed reporting.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s parliament was set to open debate Monday on a draft bill that would introduce a conditional amnesty for thousands of Kurdish militants, offering them a pardon-like mechanism in a bid to advance the government’s peace initiative with their insurgent group.

Last year, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, ended its decades-long armed campaign against the Turkish state, declaring a decision to disarm and disband as part of the peace effort. The move came in response to a call from its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The PKK then staged a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq, where it is based, and announced that it was withdrawing fighters from key locations in Turkey to Iraq.

The 12-article draft legislation outlines the procedures for the disarmament of the group — which still retains the bulk of its weapons — and the rehabilitation of thousands of PKK members.

The legislation would suspend some prison sentences for convicted PKK members and postpone ongoing investigations and trials for five or 10 years, depending on the severity of the alleged offenses. If no terror-related crime is committed within the time frame, the cases would be dropped.

Militants convicted of intentional killings and those sentenced to life terms before 2005 are excluded from the bill’s provisions. This applies to Ocalan and other senior PKK figures.

The proposal also sets up ministerial and parliamentary committees to monitor the disarmament process. The measures would come into effect only after Turkey’s National Security Council confirms that the group has disbanded and surrendered all weapons.

Those wanting to benefit from the law would have six months to apply after the National Security Council’s decision is published in the Official Gazette.

Media reports have said exiled PKK members and those in Iraq and Syria are expected to benefit.

The measures were expected to easily pass with the votes of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, its nationalist allies and a pro-Kurdish DEM party.

DEM has lobbied for Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999, to be granted official status to coordinate the transition process, leading to his release.

The current proposal, however, makes no mention of Ocalan’s status or possible release.

Media reports have suggested however, that Ocalan’s conditions in his island prison off Istanbul will likely be improved, giving him broader visiting conditions and communication with the outside world.

The PKK has waged an armed insurgency since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and spilled into Iraq and Syria. It has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The group initially sought an independent Kurdish state but later shifted to demands for autonomy and expanded rights in Turkey.

Previous peace efforts between Turkey and the PKK have failed, most recently in 2015.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party on Wednesday filed a bill in parliament to advance a peace initiative aimed at ending the decades‑long conflict with Kurdish militants, including a provision for an effective pardon for former fighters.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, last year declared its decision to disarm and disband as part of the peace effort with Turkey, following a call by its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The PKK then staged a symbolic disarmament ceremony in northern Iraq, where it is based, and announced that it was withdrawing fighters from key locations in Turkey to Iraq.

The bill toward “strengthening national solidarity and social cohesion” defines the procedures for overseeing the PKK’s disarmament and the judicial treatment of its members.

Parliament’s Justice Committee on Friday will consider the bill before a debate in the general assembly, said Abdullah Guler, chair of the Justice and Development Party’s parliamentary group. The government hopes it passes before the summer recess later this month.

“The critical threshold is the surrender, disarmament and destruction of the PKK terrorist organization’s weapons and the establishment of a mechanism to determine this process,” he told a news conference.

The proposal was submitted with the support of 360 parliamentary deputies, Guler said, with more expected to sign up in the coming days.

The PKK still holds many weapons

The PKK still has the bulk of its arsenal. A decommissioning mechanism will rely on confirmation by the National Security Council that the group has been disbanded and its weapons surrendered.

The rehabilitation of PKK members is expected to include a pardon for about 4,000 members not directly involved in violence once the group is dissolved. This could pave the way for the release of people convicted of crimes such as PKK membership or supporting the group financially or through propaganda.

It will also allow the return of PKK members based in Syria and Iraq or in exile in European countries, Hurriyet newspaper reported.

Ongoing investigations and prosecutions for such crimes would be postponed for a period dependent on the severity of the alleged offenses, Guler said. If no terror-related crime is committed within the time frame, the case will be dropped.

Applications to benefit from the law must be made within six months of its publication in the Official Gazette, Guler said. A ministerial committee and a parliamentary commission will monitor the process.

Militants convicted of intentional homicide and those sentenced to life sentences before 2005 are excluded from the bill’s provisions. This applies to Ocalan and other senior PKK figures.

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party has lobbied for Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999, to be granted official status to coordinate the transition process, leading to his release. Although this is not in the current proposal, media reports suggest it may be considered later.

Instead, Ocalan’s situation in his island prison likely will be improved, giving him broader visiting conditions and communication with the outside world.

The insurgency began in 1984

The PKK has waged an armed insurgency since 1984, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives and spilled into Iraq and Syria. It has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The group initially sought an independent Kurdish state but later shifted to demands for autonomy and expanded rights in Turkey. Previous peace efforts between Turkey and the PKK have ended in failure, most recently in 2015.

The proposed law is intended as a temporary legal framework that could last up to four years, although parliament could extend the period. It is anticipated that further legislation could be introduced to tackle other issues such as Ocalan’s release.

In a message conveyed through DEM Party legislators who visited him on Monday, Ocalan announced support for the legislation, saying that “with this law, we are setting out to resolve a historical issue. We are at the beginning of a democratization process that will be at least as significant as the founding of the republic.”

___

Wilks reported from Istanbul.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq and Turkey signed a deal Saturday to increase oil exports through a pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, as Baghdad seeks to diversify its oil export routes and reduce reliance on Gulf shipping lanes.

Iraqi Oil Minister Bassem Mohammed Khudair al-Abadi said in a statement that the agreement will remain in effect for one year while the two countries finalize a broader framework agreement covering cooperation in the oil, electricity and water resources sectors.

The agreement comes as Iraq moves to strengthen the resilience of its oil export infrastructure following disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S.-Iran war began in February.

Al-Abadi said the deal provides for a minimum export volume of 750,000 barrels of Iraqi crude per day through the pipeline, which runs from Kirkuk in northern Iraq to Ceyhan.

The Iraq-Turkey pipeline has been largely idle since 2023 after exports from Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region were halted following legal and commercial disputes, although exports through it resumed in a limited capacity last year.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi called the agreement “an important strategic milestone to ensure the uninterrupted flow of our oil exports and strengthen economic cooperation.”

Before the conflict, Iraq was exporting around 3.5 million barrels of crude oil per day in total, with most of those exports shipped through its southern terminals via the Strait of Hormuz.

The planned exports through the Turkey pipeline would represent part of that total export capacity. It would not reach prewar levels but would represent an increase from the current exports of around 200,000 barrels per day.

Iraq relies heavily on oil revenues, which account for the vast majority of government income.

The signing of the deal comes days after al-Zaidi visited Ankara for talks on security, trade, energy, transportation and water management, as well as joint infrastructure projects between the two neighbors.

One project under consideration is a pipeline that would connect southern Iraq’s Basra to western Iraq’s Haditha and from there to the Ceyhan port in Turkey and the port of Baniyas on Syria’s coast.