With NATO members meeting soon to discuss the future of the alliance's nuclear weapons, and next-door neighbor Iran threatening to get nuclear weapons itself, it's a volatile time for Turkey and nukes. Currently, Turkey hosts some U.S. nuclear bombs, along with four Western European countries. NATO has been undergoing a review of how U.S. nukes should be deployed in Europe, which was supposed to be finished by next month's summit in Chicago. But according to a recent paper from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the alliance "is unlikely to resolve the question of what to do about its forward deployed nuclear weapons before the summit."
The most likely eventual outcome, however, would seem to be that some of the European hosts of U.S. nukes (Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands) would decide to give them up, while Italy and Turkey would keep them. Turkey has been interested in maintaining that concrete measure of NATO's dedication to its defense, but some other analysts are wondering if other developments are causing Turkey to rethink its nuclear strategy.
Sinan Ülgen, also writing for Carnegie, notes that many policymakers (generally with an interest in ginning up the Iranian threat) have claimed that if Iran got nuclear weapons, that Turkey and other countries in the region would follow suit:
In 2009, Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “If Iran is allowed to go forward, in self-defense or for a variety of reasons we could have half a dozen countries in the region and 20 or 30 more around the world doing the same thing just in case.”1 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, “A nuclear armed Iran with a deliverable weapons system is going to spark an arms race in the Middle East and the greater region.” Former Bush administration official John Bolton told the United States House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs, “If Iran obtains nuclear weapons, then almost certainly Saudi Arabia will do the same, as will Egypt, Turkey and perhaps others in the region, and we risk this widespread proliferation even if it is a democratic Iran that possesses nuclear weapons.”
Ülgen concludes that Turkey would still be unlikely to pursue a nuclear weapon even if Iran acquired one, except in the case of a "breakdown in Turkey’s security relationship with the United States." Otherwise, he writes, "is unlikely that Turkey would voluntarily damage its relations with key allies and seriously complicate its international standing by choosing to proliferate."
And Lale Kemal, writing for Today's Zaman, goes a step further, suggesting that the developing NATO missile defense system -- which includes a U.S. early warning radar in southeastern Turkey -- might be enough of a reassurance to Turkey that it could assent to a removal of the U.S. nukes from its soil:
Turkey, which is among the five European nations hosting the US's B-61 gravity bombs and which has not directly or publicly questioned the continued need for their deployment at İncirlik in southern Turkey, will be obliged to make a decision over whether it wants those atomic bombs to be withdrawn from its soil or it wants them to remain. Turkey, at the moment, is among the few European countries that want the continued presence of these weapons on their soil.
The bombs have little military value but have political value for Turkey as a means to activate NATO's collective defense principle under Article 5 of the Atlantic Charter. However, if those bombs are replaced by missile defense systems Turkey will feel safe, as it will also guarantee NATO's collective defense principle and therefore Turkey will agree to the removal of B-61 bombs from its soil.
Could Turkey go completely nuke-free? We'll see if they send any signals at the Chicago summit.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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