Dozens of US nuclear weapons stored at a Turkish air base near Syria are at risk of being captured by "terrorists or other hostile forces," a Washington think tank claimed Monday.
Critics have long been alarmed by America's estimated stockpile of about 50 nuclear bombs at Incirlik in southern Turkey, just 70 miles (110 kilometers) from the border with war-torn Syria.
Incirlik is a vital base for the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, with the strategically located facility affording drones and warplanes fast access to IS targets.
But the Pentagon in March ordered families of US troops and civilian personnel stationed in southern Turkey to quit the region due to security fears.
While the Pentagon does not discuss where it stores nuclear assets, the bombs are believed to be kept at Incirlik as a deterrent to Russia and to demonstrate America's commitment to NATO, the 28-member military alliance that includes Turkey.
The Incirlik nuke issue has been the subject of renewed debate in the United States since the coup attempt.
"While we've avoided disaster so far, we have ample evidence that the security of US nuclear weapons stored in Turkey can change literally overnight," Steve Andreasen, director for defense policy and arms control on the White House National Security Council staff from 1993 to 2001, wrote in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times last week.
The Incirlik concerns were highlighted as part of a broader paper into the Pentagon's nuclear modernization program, through which the United States would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to update its atomic arsenal.
The authors argue that a particular type of bomb -- the B61 gravity bomb -- should be immediately removed from Europe, where 180 of the weapons are kept in Belgium, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey.
Even if you’ve only been paying a superficial amount of attention to the European refugee crisis, you’ll be aware of the fact that earlier this year the EU and Turkey agreed to a deal on migrants where in exchange for concessions, Turkey would stem the flow of migrants from its shores. The deal went through and refugee levels from Turkey fell dramatically.
Unfortunately, one major problem with the deal is Turkey’s demand for visa-free travel, something many throughout the EU were intensely against from the beginning, and are even more opposed to now following the Turkish government’s authoritarian crackdown on tens of thousands of its own citizens following last month’s failed coup.
So here we are, less than six months since the deal was agreed to and Turkey is now threatening to end it. This could be a geopolitical event of enormous consequence considering there are an estimated 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, many of which are itching to take their chances within the EU.
Turkey could walk away from its promise to stem the flow of illegal migrants to Europe if the European Union fails to grant Turks visa-free travel to the bloc in October, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a German newspaper.
His comments in Bild’s Monday edition coincide with rising tensions between Ankara and the West that have been exacerbated by the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15. Turkey is incensed by what it sees as an insensitive response from Western allies to the failed putsch, in which 240 people were killed.
Asked whether hundreds of thousands of refugees in Turkey would head to Europe if the EU did not grant Turks visa freedom from October, Cavusoglu told Bild: “I don’t want to talk about the worst case scenario – talks with the EU are continuing but it’s clear that we either apply all treaties at the same time or we put them all aside.”
As we noted a month ago, Reuters quoted German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel as saying while on an official visit to northern Germany.
“Germany and Europe should under no circumstances be blackmailed,” Gabriel added.
The vice chancellor also welcomed the move by Germany’s highest court to block a livestream address by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a rally of Turkish nationals in Germany’s Cologne on Sunday.
Needless to say Germany is playing a dangerous game here as Erdogan knows he has little to lose if he breaches the terms of the March deal, which he can claim was already violated by Europe and thus boost his populist image even more. After all, once Germany is flooded with another million in potential radical jihadists, it will come crawling to Ankara, begging to redo the deal, only this time the terms will be that much higher. Then again, perhaps Germany and the "European democracies" should have though of all this before they agreed to deal with Erdogan who is now well on his way to becoming the undisputed authoritarian leader of the Turkish nation, which continues to undergo historic purges of all of Erdogan's political opponents.
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