US report sees Turkey as possibly joining in a nuclear arms race

High-level US diplomats in Riyadh with access to Saudi decision makers said an Iranian nuclear weapon frightens the Saudis "to their core" and would compel the Saudis to seek nuclear weapons, the report said. The American diplomats were not identified.

While Turkey and Iran do not see themselves as adversaries, Turkey believes a power balance between them is the primary reason for a peaceful relationship, the report said.

Egypt would probably choose not to respond by pursuing its own nuclear weapons program, the report, prepared in late February and obtained Wednesday, said. The impact on relations with Israel and the United States were cited as the primary reasons.

A US intelligence estimate late last year said Iran worked on nuclear weapons programs until 2003 before abandoning them. However, the intelligence analysts also reported Iran was continuing to enrich uranium, a key weapons component, and possessed the capability to produce nuclear weapons if it decided to do so.

Among the conclusions, the report said demands for nuclear energy and for matching Iran's nuclear progress virtually guarantees that three or four Middle Eastern countries will generate nuclear power by 2025. And this, in turn, will reduce the obstacles to acquiring nuclear weapons, the report said.

The spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East could reduce regional security and endanger US interests, the report said. In the next two or three years, the United States must take steps to restore Arab and Turkish confidence in US security guarantees, the report concluded. Otherwise, it said, "the future Middle East landscape may include a number of nuclear armed or nuclear weapons-capable states vying for influence in a notoriously unstable region."

Late last month, Iran's nuclear program came on the agenda of talks between visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He reportedly told Cheney that Iran should work with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to ease international fears that the program is designed for making nuclear weapons, when the US vice president said he was concerned about Iran's nuclear program.

Iran says its nuclear program is for the peaceful purpose of generating electricity and has refused to suspend enrichment, despite a third round of sanctions recently imposed by the UN Security Council.

Earlier this year, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan expressed criticism of Washington's efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear program, saying they were undermining reformists in Tehran and bolstering Iranian influence across the Middle East. According to Babacan, the United States was failing to win broad support for tougher sanctions against Iran, and he called instead for dialogue and diplomacy.

"Simply isolating Iran in our view caused Iran to be more united, to weaken the hands of the reformists," he said in an interview held in late January. "Also [it led to an] Iran which had more and more influence in the region. That is the reality we are observing."