Erdoğan urged, once again, during a speech in Washington on Monday that a nuclear-free zone be established in Turkey's region, i.e., the Middle East, which in particular will include Israel. Erdoğan also said that Turkey does not want Iran or any other nation to have nuclear weapons.
But Erdoğan defends Iran's right to acquire nuclear energy for peaceful purposes while opposing the imposition of strong sanctions on this country. Ankara also opposes any military option to be put on the table as a last resort as a means of deterring Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. There is no problem with Turkey's stance that Iran, like other nations, has the right to acquire nuclear energy. But NATO ally Turkey's position raises concerns that this has been playing into the hands of Iran, which has created deep suspicion within the international community over its alleged work toward creating nuclear weapons.
While the issue of Iran has continued to be a matter of serious disagreement between Turkey and the US in particular, Erdoğan will soon face a dilemma over nuclear arms the US deployed during the Cold War years at İncirlik Air Base in southern Turkey. This displays an inconsistency between Erdoğan's call for a nuclear-free zone in the region while hosting US nuclear weapons on its soil. Will Erdoğan be ready to agree on the withdrawal of those weapons at İncirlik?
The US is also expected to knock on Turkey's door following the signing of a renewed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on April 8 under which the US may possibly scrap its nuclear arms deployed at four European countries, including Turkey.
There are some 220 aerial atomic bombs held on military bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Turkey. According to experts, Italy and Turkey host about 90 of these nuclear warheads each. Following the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the US has withdrawn artillery-delivered tactical nuclear weapons based mainly in the Thracian region, İstanbul and Erzurum in the east. The strategic nuclear weapons delivered by airplane are kept at the İncirlik base.
While there has been a debate over whether those nuclear weapons are enough of a deterrent to meet today's threats, the US is believed to keep the nukes at İncirlik as a means of deterring Iran from any possible nuclear strike.
According to one opinion, it may be good to keep the guns on the table because in taking the guns off the table, one can lose tremendous leverage over the other.
When asked for his opinion on the nukes at İncirlik whilst on board the plane taking him to Washington on Sunday, Erdoğan refrained from talking about this specific issue. He only said there have been changes at İncirlik under his government, but he fell short of elaborating.
Though his remarks over this issue were unclear, it is known that the US has expanded its operations at İncirlik in the last 10 years. The US has been using İncirlik as an air bridge for flights to Afghanistan and as a cargo hub for neighboring Iraq, and as a consequence Turkey has become more agreeable to İncirlik being used for other purposes.
In the meantime, despite Erdoğan's call for a nuclear free zone in the region, it will be interesting to see what his stance will be when the possibility of withdrawing nuclear bombs from İncirlik begins to be debated as part of START. Will Erdoğan agree or disagree over their withdrawal, placed at the time as part of a NATO requirement? Turkey will be at a crossroads on its overall nuclear arms policy.
