Long a reluctant member of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, Turkey last week made a dramatic turnaround by granting the alliance access to its air bases and bombarding targets in Syria linked to the jihadist movement.
Struggling with more than 1.8 million Syrian refugees, Turkey has long campaigned for a "no-fly zone" in northern Syria to keep Islamic State and Kurdish militants from its border and help stem the tide of displaced civilians trying to cross.
While no such formal arrangement has been struck with Washington, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the two allies saw eye to eye on the need to provide air cover for moderate Syrian rebels fighting Islamic State.
"What we have now is air coverage to clear a region from Daesh (Islamic State) and support the moderate opposition so they can gain control of that region," Davutoglu told Turkey's ATV in an interview broadcast live.
"We do not want to see Daesh on Turkey's borders."
In Washington, US officials said discussions were ongoing about the size and scope of a safe zone along the border, which would be cleared of Islamic State fighters and allow moderate rebels to operate freely.
Ankara is expected to brief its allies on the measures it is taking but did not request any air or troop support during preparations for the meeting, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
"Turkey has a very strong army and very strong security forces so there has been no request for any substantial NATO military support," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the BBC.
Syrian Kurds ‘not a target’
Alongside its action in Syria, Turkey launched a second night of air strikes on Kurdish insurgent camps in Iraq on Sunday, part of what a senior Turkish official described as a "full-fledged battle against all terrorist organisations".
The renewed military campaign against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state partly from camps in northern Iraq, has raised suspicions that Turkey's real agenda is checking Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than fighting Islamic State.
US State Department spokesman John Kirby disputed suggestions that Washington had condoned Turkey's strikes on the PKK as a quid pro quo for Ankara's expanded cooperation against Islamic State.
He described the timing as a "coincidence".
"PKK is a foreign terrorist organisation, Turks have a right to defend themselves against it," Kirby said.
"There's no connection between what they did against PKK and what we're going to try to do together against ISIL," he said.
Ankara is concerned that the success in northern Syria of the Kurdish YPG militia, which has pushed back Islamic State with the help of US-led air strikes, will stoke separatist sentiment among its own Kurds and embolden the PKK.
Turkey's Kurds say that by reviving open conflict with the PKK, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is also seeking to undermine support for the pro-Kurdish opposition ahead of a possible early election and stoke up nationalist sentiment.
Washington has reiterated that it labels the PKK as a terrorist organisation and stressed that it respects Turkey's right to take action against the militant group.
The moves against the PKK come despite negotiations launched by Ankara in 2012 to end an insurgency that has killed 40,000 people since 1984.
The PKK has said the actions have rendered the peace process meaningless.
Turkish security forces have rounded up 1,050 suspected members of Islamic State, Kurdish militants and ultra-leftists in recent days, Davutoglu said, adding 50-60 of them were foreigners.
Local media reports said the vast majority were Kurdish and leftists, not members of Islamic State.