“We believe the government of Turkey shares our objective of preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. We appreciate the hard work that Turkey has put in in trying to persuade Iran to adopt a more reasonable position,” Robert J. Einhorn, special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, said during a session at the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday.
Einhorn added that Turkey and the US sometimes differed on tactics, such as Turkey’s joining with Brazil and Iran in the Tehran nuclear declaration in May.
“They supported what we considered to be an unacceptable version of a proposal we supported back in October on refueling the Tehran research reactor. We didn’t appreciate the timing of that because it was on the eve of voting on the UN Security Council resolution, and perhaps some of the participants had in mind derailing that vote on a Security Council resolution,” Einhorn explained. “So sometimes we disagree with Turkey on tactics, but we believe their motivation is good. They want to solve this Iran nuclear issue just as we do,” Einhorn said.
