“There are approximately 50 US nuclear weapons, stored on Turkish soil. The United States had never openly acknowledged its existence, until Wednesday, when Trump did exactly that. When asked about the safety of these weapons, stored in a bunker controlled by the Americans at Incirlik Air Base, Mr. Trump said, “We have confidence and we have a large air base there, a very powerful air base.” But not everyone is so confident, because the air base belongs to the Turkish government. If relations with Turkey deteriorate, US access to that base is not guaranteed.”
ARTICLE BY DAVID E. SANGER & | nytimes.com
Erdogan is playing before an anti-American domestic audience with his nuclear rhetoric, but he is very unlikely to look for nuclear weapons,,quot; said Jessica C. Varnum, an expert in Turkey at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Middlebury in Monterey, California, “There would be huge economic and reputational costs for Turkey, which would damage the pockets of Erdogan voters.”
“For Erdogan,” said Varnum, “that seems to me a bridge too far.”
There is another element in this ambiguous atomic mix: the presence of approximately 50 US nuclear weapons, stored on Turkish soil. The United States had never openly acknowledged its existence, until Wednesday, when Trump did exactly that.
When asked about the safety of these weapons, stored in a bunker controlled by the Americans at Incirlik Air Base, Mr. Trump said: “We have confidence and we have a large air base there, a very powerful air base.”
But not everyone is so confident, because the air base belongs to the Turkish government. If relations with Turkey deteriorate, US access to that base is not guaranteed.
Turkey has been a base for US nuclear weapons for more than six decades. Initially, they intended to dissuade the Soviet Union, and were a famous negotiating chip to defuse the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when President John F. Kennedy secretly agreed to withdraw missiles from Turkey in exchange for Moscow to do so. Same in Cuba.
But tactical weapons have remained. Over the years, US officials have often expressed nervousness about weapons, which now have little or no strategic use against Russia, but have been part of a NATO strategy to keep regional players under control, and prevent Turkey from feeling the need for a bomb of its own.